Rockwell Automation’s purchase of autonomous robotics company Clearpath gave the industrial automation and digital transformation leader new capability in a segment growing at c. 30% per year – autonomous mobile robots or AMRs. At the annual Automation Fair in Boston in November, Clearpath’s founders explained why joining forces has so much potential for manufacturing.
Rockwell Automation’s acquisition of Clearpath, and its Otto Motors division that specialises in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), completes an important portfolio of autonomous factory equipment for Rockwell Automation that provides safer, more efficient production environments for customers.
At the Automation Fair 2023, Clearpath founders Matt Rendall and Ryan Gariepy, discussed why the partnership has so much potential for manufacturing.
Otto Motors’ AMRs increase throughput and reduce costs by providing “automated Kanban” – ensuring that components and subassemblies are moved to the correct station when needed and transporting finished goods to a truck or warehouse on completion. A variety of factors including unnecessary movements, safety issues, labor availability and task repetition means much high-volume material handling in large factories is more efficient if completed by robots.
AMRs is a mature technology in logistics and warehousing applications, but it is less prevalent in manufacturing – there is often more variation in the routes handlers need to take in a factory. Canadian automation engineering firm Clearpath had focused on manufacturing applications from the company’s beginning in 2008, a big factor in the decision to acquire it.
But this is now a growth market. The market for AMRs in manufacturing is expected to grow about 30% per year over the next five years, to reach an estimated market size of $6.2 billion by 20271. The Clearpath acquisition is expected to contribute a percentage point to Rockwell’s fiscal 2024 revenue growth.
Graduating from University of Waterloo, Ontario in 2008, Rendall and Gariepy had strong autonomous robotics skills, having built and competed with AMRs in national competitions. But with no industrial AMR market then, they first developed their robots with an altruistic purpose. “In the very, very early days our business plan was to use AMRs to detect and clear mine fields,” says CEO Rendall. “Land mines are a big global problem. We saw an opportunity to deploy a swarm of AMRs to detect and clear mine fields. That’s where the name Clearpath came from.”
The pair knew that other commercial opportunities would come and began to track university R&D. “We started to look at what research professors were working on next,” recalled Rendall. “We became the market leader in AMR development, mostly with universities and then into government and then industrial R&D. We had a front-row seat in every industry looking into this technology.”
Chief technology officer Gariepy took an internship at Kiva Systems, an early AMR adopter. From the sheer volume of industry interest that Kiva received, he knew that AMRs would be a success, beginning with logistics and moving into manufacturing. “The technology we’ve built is very extensible into different operational domains, but we’re focused on doubling down in the manufacturing space,” he said.
Manufacturing autonomously is the future
Manufacturing applications are more difficult than warehousing, owing to their complexity and huge range of processes and products. But the problems that the sector faced – and still faces – including low productivity, often repetitive and dull jobs meaning recruitment challenges, and high labor costs – meant that Clearpath knew their Otto AMRs would find buyers.
“In the manufacturing world, it’s difficult to find the delivery route,” explained Rendall. “For example, the way that a company moves goods in one plant is different from the way it moves tires in another plant. We are a platform AMR company, not an application AMR company, and we work with lots of systems integrators. The rigor of manufacturing creates high barriers to entry.”
Clearpath’s range of AMRs covers different payloads, and it is best known for the heavy-class AMR – the Otto 1500 – because of the high demand here. Pallets were the closest thing Rendall and Gariepy had to a universal standard for weight and volume, so they started with a pallet solution.
The Rockwell Automation and Clearpath partnership is good for manufacturing. Rockwell Automation’s strength in the complex parts delivery in the automotive sector is a great match for Clearpath. “If you look at where Rockwell Automation is strongest and where we’ve been developing, there’s natural overlap,” said Rendall. “The next frontier of automation in factories is in material handling. We have strength in automotive and tire, and Rockwell does too.”
AMRs are versatile, and future-proof. “Rockwell and Clearpath will simplify the difficult and labor-intensive task of moving materials and product through an orchestrated and safe system to optimize operations through the entire manufacturing facility,” Blake Moret, chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation, said at the time of the acquisition. “The combination of autonomous robots and PLC-based line control has long been a dream of plant managers in industries as diverse as automotive and consumer packaged goods. With Clearpath, Rockwell is uniquely positioned to make that dream a reality across virtually all discrete and hybrid verticals, optimizing planning, operations, and the workforce.”
An essential aspect of any technology business acquisition is data integration and handling. The data from Rockwell Automation and Otto Motors’ respective devices are captured in an artificial intelligence powered SaaS application, as used by Rockwell’s Plex MES and Fiix software. This enables smart, autonomous execution of tasks in the factory, increasing speed and efficiency of production, and provides customers with traceability. In operational technology, more and more companies are seeking a “unified solution for manufacturing” with seamless IT integration, so the smart factory devices execute the real needs of the business.
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