Intelligent robots set to revolutionize Canadian manufacturing, Xaba CEO predicts

Massimiliano (Max) Moruzzi, CEO of intelligent automation startup Xaba, is offering a keynote address on September 25 at Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show (CMTS)

Why are the vast majority of robots, cobots and robotic applications falling short in the manufacturing sector? Because even though they’ve been designed with great mechanical bodies — effectively replicating, mechanizing and automating routine actions typically carried out by humans — they lack one essential ingredient: a brain. This is the message that Moruzzi is sharing, according to a press statement from CMTS organizer SME.

The statement says that the latest Gartner report on AI indicates that 85 percent of all AI projects fail to deliver. Moruzzi will share his perspective on why harnessing the full potential of robotics, machines, and AI has proven to be such a formidable challenge. What’s needed instead, suggests Moruzzi, is a new breed of intelligent autonomous robots that not only understand the context and easily switch between tasks, but also think for themselves, extracting meaningful data on the fly to suggest new ways of working.

Moruzzi’s keynote is titled “Shaping Tomorrow’s Industry: Canada’s Odyssey with Industrial AI.” In his presentation, he will explain how the emerging field of industrial AI – intelligent robots that leverage synthetic brains to perform industrial-grade processes that are high quality, safe, consistent, scalable and conform to key performance indicators (KPIs) – is different from existing AI solutions.

“It’s not about deep learning, predictive analytics and computer vision. This is an end zone presentation where you’ll see this new wave of industrial AI that’s coming, and the impact of working with a machine that can talk to you and use its own knowledge to help solve the business challenges you face,” said Moruzzi. “All of a sudden, your shop floor becomes a cluster of knowledge, not just to help you with a particular throughput problem, but also to help you understand how you’ve positioned yourself versus a rapidly changing market.”

At CMTS, Moruzzi will demonstrate how his company’s AI platform is disrupting vehicle manufacturing by enabling a fully functional car chassis to be created using a robotic system that understands the properties of carbon fibre and is capable of calculating and controlling the material’s variables on its own. He will also outline the tremendous value of industrial AI compared to previous iterations of robotic systems in the North American manufacturing sector.

“We fragmented the technology so much that robots today are inefficient,” he said, explaining how the average entry-level robot today costs roughly $70,000, with another $350,000 to $400,000 investment required to program it for each new task it performs. Once powered with industrial AI software, however, those same commercial robots are capable of performing multiple tasks — such as welding, drilling, assembling and additive manufacturing. This provides an instant return on investment (ROI) by eliminating the necessity for extra programming expenses and time-consuming, laborious trial-and-error efforts.

Moruzzi applauds Canada for taking a lead role in creating the right landscape for industrial AI to thrive by supporting innovative startups as well as technology hubs such as the Vector Institute and strongly believes that the next wave of robotics augmented by AI-powered intelligence is poised to create a vast, untapped market opportunity for corporations of all sizes.

“At the end of the day, Canada is de-risking industrial AI for the manufacturing sector,” he said, urging businesses that may remain hesitant to adopt automation due to the significant cost barriers to revisit the technology. “Intelligent robots are finally going to unlock the potential of automation that’s been promised for years, and my message to manufacturers is it’s time to commit to a new way of doing things.”