What's Going on With Automation?

This week: Port automation and robotaxi cancellation draw ire. Ironmaking in a flash. Finding the money to drill into the Earth. Virtual PLCs and AI on the shopfloor. Robot intelligence with GenAI.

Dec 15, 2024

Shop Talk

Capturing this week's zeitgeist

There has been a lot of discussion having to do with “automation” on United States docks. I’ve studied automation, and know just about everything there is to know about it. The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen.
🇺🇸 President-elect Trump on Truth Social

While automation promises increased efficiency and reduced labor costs, it doesn’t always work. Before judging why an organization is resisting change, have the patience to listen; you may learn something new. Sal from “What is Going on With Shipping?” is the only notable voice to have done that with the ILA.

There are challenging dynamics in industrial environments where multiple automated systems need to work in perfect synchronization, and even minor equipment issues can trigger facility-wide shutdowns that result in significant production losses. Once you understand the true impact of automation within the larger production system, only then will you be able to celebrate like Exotec and Formic.

Assembly Line

This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.

💥 China develops new iron making method that boosts productivity by 3,600 times

✍️ Author: Bojan Stojkovski
🔖 Topics: Flash Ironmaking
🏭 Vertical: Primary Metal

A new iron making technology developed in China is set to significantly impact the global steel industry. Developed after more than 10 years of research, this method injects finely ground iron ore powder into a very hot furnace, causing an “explosive chemical reaction”, according to the engineers. The result is a continuous flow of high-purity iron that forms as bright red, glowing liquid droplets that accumulate at the base of the furnace, ready for direct casting or one-step steel-making.

The flash iron making method, as detailed by Professor Zhang Wenhai and his team in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nonferrous Metals last month, can complete the iron making process in just three to six seconds, compared to the five to six hours required by traditional blast furnaces.

One of the major technical hurdles for flash iron making is the ore-spraying lance, which must effectively disperse iron ore in a high-temperature, highly reducible tower space with a large specific surface area to initiate the necessary chemical reaction. Zhang Wenhai’s team has successfully addressed this challenge by developing a vortex lance capable of injecting a substantial 450 tonnes of iron ore particles per hour. A reactor equipped with three such lances can produce a substantial 7.11 million tonnes of iron annually. Importantly, this innovative lance technology has already entered commercial production.

Read more at Interesting Engineering

Tim Latimer, Fervo Energy CEO, on Solving the Financing Problem for Geothermal

🏢 Organizations: Fervo Energy

⚡ Take advantage of the Earth’s energy:

Mining Technology from Lab to Market [The Scenarionist]
What's it like on a geothermal drilling rig? [YouTube]
China’s PV Industry Takes Rare Collective Action to Cut Production [Yicai]

🚙🏭 To Build Electric Cars, Jaguar Land Rover Had to Redesign the Factory

✍️ Author: Alex Christian
🔖 Topics: Facility Design
🏭 Vertical: Automotive

The first stage in Halewood’s redevelopment was its new body shop, with two floors separated by 2.5 meters (8 feet) of concrete to account for heavy machinery, capable of producing 500 vehicle bodies per day. The new build line is now in the commissioning stage: pre-production electrified medium-size SUVs are set to be tested through 2025. Forty new autonomous mobile robots now assist Halewood employees with fitting high-voltage batteries. Other additions include a £10 million ($12.9 million) automated painted body storage tower, stacking up to 600 vehicles, retrieved by cranes for just-in-time customer orders.

The plant’s final production line is now also 50 percent longer, with 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) to accommodate battery fitting. All-electric vehicles will be produced in parallel with JLR plug-in hybrids, like the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque, and its internal combustion engines. Traditionally, petrol cars are built around the engine, with full-vehicle length components: a drive shaft, fuel lines, and exhaust systems. But electric vehicles have a very different build, says Ford. “The battery goes in much later during the production process—electric drive units go onto front and rear subframes, with a large battery in the middle. That’s why we had to expand our production line, spread the process out, and keep our battery electric vehicles separate.”

➡️ Moving to electric mobility:

🚙🏭🧠 Developing an AI platform for enhanced manufacturing efficiency at Toyota [Google Cloud]
⭐ Automated 3D Inspection System Detects Weld Defects [Assembly]
🔋📉 Lithium-Ion Battery Pack Prices See Largest Drop Since 2017, Falling to $115 per Kilowatt-Hour [Bloomberg NEF]
🔋🤝 Stellantis and CATL JV for LFP; Stellantis and Zeta Energy for Li-S; GM and LGES “embrace a technology agnostic approach” to battery cells
🔋🏭Toyota vows to move ahead with $13.9bn battery plant in North Carolina [FT]

Top Reasons Robotic Companies Fail

🏢 Organizations: PickNik Robotics

🦿📦 Preparing robots and supply chains for peak season:

How Ambi Robotics rolls out improvements [The Robot Report]
Conquering the Rush with AI-powered Robotics [OSARO]
Supply Chain Design vs Planning: Insights from Don Hicks, CEO of Optilogic [ViT]

📸 Aftermarket Sensors Boost Yield In Wafer Fabs

✍️ Author: Anne Meixner
🔖 Topics: IT OT Convergence
🏭 Vertical: Semiconductor

Third-party sensors are being added into fab equipment to help boost yield and to extend the life of expensive tools, supplementing the sensors that come with equipment used in fabs.

The good news is that integrating 3rd-party sensor data into factory data management systems is straightforward, especially when sensors use established SEMI standards like SECS/GEM. Even if they don’t adhere to those standards, the barrier to connect them to a factory’s data infrastructure is low. But to maximize their usefulness, several industry experts emphasized the importance of traceability and the ability to correlate data from different sources in context.

Read more at Semiconductor Engineering

🧠🎛️ Acting on factory data:

Virtual PLCs: Can they become the industry norm by 2030? [IoT Analytics]
Symphony AI on the shopfloor [The Industrial AI Podcast]
OEE and LLaMA [The Industrial AI Podcast]

Effortless Automation: Pick and Place with Natural Language Control

🏢 Organizations: Sereact

🦾🧠 Finding robot intelligence:

Ever wanted to see a robot calibrate itself? [Edward Mehr on X]
Teaching a robot its limits, to complete open-ended tasks safely [MIT News]

Meet Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip

✍️ Author: Hartmut Neven
🔖 Topics: Quantum Computing
🏢 Organizations: Google

Published in Nature, our results show that the more qubits we use in Willow, the more we reduce errors, and the more quantum the system becomes. We tested ever-larger arrays of physical qubits, scaling up from a grid of 3x3 encoded qubits, to a grid of 5x5, to a grid of 7x7 — and each time, using our latest advances in quantum error correction, we were able to cut the error rate in half. In other words, we achieved an exponential reduction in the error rate. This historic accomplishment is known in the field as “below threshold” — being able to drive errors down while scaling up the number of qubits. You must demonstrate being below threshold to show real progress on error correction, and this has been an outstanding challenge since quantum error correction was introduced by Peter Shor in 1995.

New Product Introduction

Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services

🛠️ Lam Research Introduces the Semiconductor Industry's First Collaborative Robot for Fab Maintenance Optimization

🏢 Organizations: Lam Research, Universal Robots, Samsung

Lam Research Corp. (Nasdaq: LRCX) introduced Dextro™, the semiconductor industry’s first collaborative robot (cobot) designed to optimize critical maintenance tasks on wafer fabrication equipment. Now deployed in multiple advanced wafer fabs around the world, Dextro enables accurate, high-precision maintenance to minimize tool downtime and production variability. It drives significant first-time-right (FTR) results that can enhance yield.

Today’s wafer fabrication equipment utilizes advanced physics, robotics and chemistry to create semiconductors at nanoscale. A typical fab has hundreds of process tools that each require regular, complex maintenance. Dextro is designed to improve the cost effectiveness of this equipment by performing critical maintenance tasks repeatability with sub-micron precision.

“When manufacturing equipment requires maintenance, the work must be done quickly and efficiently to avoid extended tool downtime and wasted cost,” said Young Ju Kim, vice president and head of the Memory Etch Technology Team at Samsung Electronics. “Error-free maintenance by Dextro helps drive improvements in production variability and yield. This is an exciting milestone in Samsung’s journey to the autonomous fab.”

🚚🧠 Volvo Begins Autonomous Operations for DHL Supply Chain in Texas

🔖 Topics: Autonomous Driving
🏢 Organizations: Volvo, DHL, Aurora Innovation

Volvo Autonomous Solutions (V.A.S.) and DHL Supply Chain have taken a significant step towards transforming freight transportation with the launch of autonomous operations in the United States. The operations will be enabled by the purpose-built, production-ready Volvo VNL Autonomous, which is powered by the Aurora Driver.

The start of operations marks a critical phase in validating the full ecosystem required for autonomous transport at scale. At this stage, a safety driver will be present to monitor performance and ensure seamless integration into existing logistic networks. Freight will initially be hauled on two lanes, Dallas to Houston and Fort Worth to El Paso.

Business Transactions

This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.

🇨🇭 ANYbotics Raises Additional $60 Million to Drive U.S. Expansion

🔖 Topics: Funding Event
🏢 Organizations: ANYbotics, Qualcomm, Supernova Invest

ANYbotics, a global leader in AI-driven robotic inspection solutions, has raised an additional $60 million, bringing its total funding to over $130 million. The new funding is led by Qualcomm Ventures and Supernova Invest, with participation from TDK Ventures and other new investors. Backed by existing investors from Silicon Valley and Europe, including Walden Catalyst, NGP Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Swisscanto, and Swisscom Ventures, the funding will accelerate ANYbotics’ global scaling and recent expansion in the U.S. to meet the growing demand for its industrial inspection robots and enhance the company’s ability to deliver exceptional services and seamless integrations worldwide.

🇺🇸 Cofactr Raises $17M Series A to Streamline Supply Chain So Hardware Manufacturers Can Iterate Fast While Complying With Regulations and Policies

🏢 Organizations: Cofactr, Bain Capital

Cofactr, a supply chain and logistics management platform that streamlines production, processes and policies for critical hardware manufacturers, today announced the close of its $17.2M Series A funding round. The raise was led by Bain Capital. It was joined by existing Seed investors Y Combinator, Floating Point Ventures, Broom and DNX. The new investment brings Cofactr’s total funding to $28.8 million.

Cofactr’s platform is already in use by 50+ companies, representing a mix of hardware manufacturers and R&D groups at major digital enterprises with ambitious plans to diversify into hardware products. These customers span both high-compliance sectors, such as aerospace, defense, robotics and medical technology, and consumer-facing industries, such as autonomous vehicles and wearables. With an initial focus on electronics, Cofactr is now seeing significant demand from companies navigating electromechanical and mechanical supply chains as well.

🇸🇬 Eureka Robotics Raises USD 10.5 Million Series A to Accelerate Deployment of Physical AI for Precision Manufacturing and Logistics

🏢 Organizations: Eureka Robotics, B Capital, Airbus

Singapore-based start-up Eureka Robotics has raised a USD 10.5 million Series A round led by B Capital (a global multi-stage investment firm), with participation from new investors Airbus Ventures, Maruka Corporation, G. K. Goh Ventures, and returning investors UTEC and ATEQ.

The funding will help scale the company’s operations in existing markets of Singapore and Japan, as well as enable Eureka to fully enter the US market, where the company has already acquired initial customers. Eureka has successfully implemented this technology in real-world factory settings, completing over 25 million operations for industry leaders in Japan and the United States, including Toyota, Denso, Bridgestone, Mitsui Fudosan, Sumitomo Bakelite, Pratt & Whitney, and Coherent.

🇬🇧 Partful’s 3D models ‘explode’, and so does its funding with €6 million secured to develop SaaS platform

🏢 Organizations: Partful, Northern Gritstone

Partful, a Manchester-based startup specialising in interactive 3D technology, has raised €6 million to accelerate the automation of its 3D aftersales SaaS platform for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The funding round was led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from Par Equity and US-based Blumberg Capital. This latest investment brings Partful’s total funding to €13.5 million since receiving €2.8 million in July 2023 and its first seed round in January 2022.

Since its inception in 2017, Partful has focused on creating user-friendly, accessible solutions to streamline aftersales operations for OEMs. Available in 71 languages, the platform seeks to reduces costly order errors, improves manufacturer revenues, and limit product downtime by enabling faster parts fulfilment and repair processes. The platform has already been adopted by OEM customers such as Lotus, Lear, Kolpak, and Ideal Heating.