Advanced Automation by Calvary Robotics

Being a woman in STEM can be challenging. But, for many, it’s a field with limitless opportunities and the potential for life-changing growth.

Michelle Hand, who holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, was always attracted to the mechanical side of things. She grew up in a family of “backyard engineers,” was enamored with race cars, and found her career footing as a mechanical engineer before joining Calgary Robotics, one of North America's leading providers of turnkey automated systems and machine replication services, as an applications engineer.

Host Sarah Verna, Corporate Marketing Manager of Calgary Robotics, was joined by Hand on this episode of Advanced Automation to talk about her career strides in engineering, an area that’s historically been dominated by men.

Mechanical engineering, Hand said, is a viable option for women, yet they’re often discouraged from pursuing it. Ultimately for Hand, the challenge wasn’t so much being a female engineer, but being a young engineer.

“One of the hurdles of being a young engineer is proving your abilities,” she said. “You have to prove your dedication.” Her diligence paid off, and ,last year, she transitioned her engineering skills to sales, becoming a Business Development Manager.

Being on the ground floor of an explosive industry has also opened her eyes to future advancements within the automated field.

“Robotics and humans will work hand-in-hand, with the use of artificial intelligence, to increase overall production,” she said.

Each team member brings something unique to the table at Calvary Robotics. Their experience and expertise ensure that the company innovates and provides the best products for its users. On Advanced Automation, host Josh Gravelle spoke with Jamie Green, Director of Manufacturing, Calvary Robotics.

Green has over 23 years of experience in manufacturing and is an engineer. He worked with Calvary as a partner during his career and was excited to join the team in 2020. “This is my first manufacturing leadership role, and I’m enjoying what I’m doing.”

Joining the company during the pandemic brought new challenges and opportunities. “The supply chain has been a focus. It’s impacted lead times and material availability. We’re using standard products and building up inventory to take the volatility out of build time,” Green said.

While they don’t have robots building their robots, they use pre-engineered solutions and automation of support processes to get products to customers on time. Since they work across many industries, the knowledge they have can translate. “Regardless of the end market, techniques and tools can apply across many industries,” Green added.

The company has been quick to respond to new needs and delivering on quality. Green noted that there is a collaboration between different groups in the company, including mentoring. Since manufacturing has had quite a transformation with technology, seasoned workers can learn from younger workers. In turn, those veterans can provide education on what you can’t learn through technology.

The big lessons for manufacturing going forward will be to “remain diversified.” Green continued, adding that, “To stay competitive, companies will continue to focus on LEAN, automation in areas traditionally staffed by people, and new automation opportunities for online businesses like order fulfillment and material handling.”

Demand for American manufactured goods is soaring, and March 2021 set a three-year high for U.S. manufacturing activity. Yet, there are currently 500,000 skilled labor positions unfilled.

What’s the answer to closing the shortage gap? That’s the topic for CalTV, as host Tyler Kern spoke to return guest Joe Gemma, Global VP Sales and Marketing at Calvary Robotics.

“Manufacturing is different than it was a generation ago, but it has a negative perception, and we need to change that,” Gemma said.

Manufacturing jobs may need a rebrand, providing an overview of how advanced the field has become through automation and robotics. These things are helping with labor issues and negative perceptions regarding repetitive tasks. This technology also is creating new, high-value positions that can become a career.

“Manufacturing is struggling to find workers to implement automation. The median age of a manufacturing worker is mid to late 40s, and a baby boomer retires every eight seconds. There aren’t new people to fill these roles,” Gemma explained.

How does the U.S. address the challenge? Gemma advocated for a national policy around this that brings together the stakeholders. These roles require education and training. While larger companies have the resources to develop these programs, it’s SMBs that need support.

“We need more apprenticeship programs, flexible work schedules, and visibility of vocational schools to attract new talent. We also need diversity initiatives. Women hold only one-third of manufacturing jobs, so we need to reach out to them,” Gemma noted.

As companies grow and change, employees do, as well. Some might stay for a short time before moving on to better things, while some stay a lifetime. It’s always essential to get the perspective of long-time employees, as they’ve seen things change for the better.

On this episode of Advanced Automation, A Podcast By Calvary Robotics, host Josh Gravelle talked with Chris Passero, Lead Machine Builder and the third employee ever hired by Calvary. The duo talked about Passero’s career at the company and the many things he’s seen over the years. Passero has worked in the industry for over 38 years, 25 of which have been at Calvary.

Passero started his career in an apprenticeship for a small company, learning the ins and outs of machine building and tool making. “I learned how to weld, paint – we took a blueprint reading course, all the math courses you have to take, and, of course, assembling machines was a big part of it,” Passero said.

Over the 38 years, Passero has worked on numerous automation systems, and it’s hard to calculate how many he’s built. He guessed hundreds. “Some years, you might work on only one or two machines. If they’re large, sometimes you’ll work on those small cells, and you’ll pump a bunch of those out,” Passero said.

Passero dug into the early days of Calvary, when he did everything from cleaning bathrooms to doing payroll.

“Calvary’s been a good place to work,” Passero said.

Buying and selling changed dramatically in the last year, accelerated by the pandemic, forcing both parties to use digital channels. Back to discuss COVID-19’s influence on global selling, Christoph Schell, Chief Commercial Officer at HP, talked with Calvary TV host Joe Gemma.

The second conversation focuses on eCommerce, social selling, omnichannel and other paradigm shifts. 

Schell described HP’s response. “There is a decentralization of decision-making, and the shopping journey moved online for B2B. Regions don’t work anymore; it’s a global strategy to ensure consistency.”

HP redefined its sales process and included centers of excellence. The two most critical are the HP store, where customers interact directly with the brand, and building an omnichannel team. “The customer is getting more information and leaving footprints, which we use to understand what they want, sometimes before they articulate it. That’s caused me to hire data analysts in sales,” Schnell said.

More data about customers offers companies the chance to have one-on-one engagement and more personalized experiences. A global message is the bedrock, but Schnell noted that localization in individual markets customizes it. 

Schnell also spoke about forecasting. “Historical data wasn’t important last year. We went to scenarios looking at the accuracy of ambition of what we want to achieve. It’s a bigger focus on outcomes.”

How people sell is different now, too. Schnell thinks that some traditional approaches will remain, but that social selling and data analytics will thrive. “Social selling works. It’s relationship-building –virtually. Both traditional and social will co-exist, but the pandemic accelerated digital channels.”

The pandemic has permanently reshaped business environments and supply chains. From this, what are the lessons learned? Offering his perspective, Christoph Schell, Chief Commercial Officer at HP, joined Calvary TV host Joe Gemma. Schell has held various leadership positions with HP for the last 21 years and worked in brand management for P&G and growing the Phillips Lighting division.

Schell first described the impact of the supply chain. “The last year was an eye-opener. All these years, we’ve been optimizing the supply chain for cost and speed but never for resiliency.”

The pandemic, of course, forced resiliency to the top. Logistics were disrupted, and products in high demand that were essential could no longer drift through the ocean for weeks. It required major pivots across the board, and Schell credits this necessary shift with the acceleration of digital manufacturing.

The changing business models also impacted manufacturing, forcing a more holistic look. Schell also noted the change in the buyer. “The consumerization of IT has been gaining, but now, there’s the birth of new customer segment, the prosumer.”

The prosumer blurs the lines between technology someone uses in their personal life and professional life. These changes also highlighted the emergence of digital manufacturing, specifically 3-D printing. “These capabilities were making elbow openers and printing face shields, while the analog manufacturing supply chain was still thinking about A to B.”

Schell doesn’t think digital manufacturing will replace analog but that the two can co-exist to add value and alleviate supply chain pressure. “It’s hard to pivot in manufacturing, but organizations now realize the need for flexibility,” he said.

Thanks to a demand for automation that has only increased in recent years, Calvary Robotics and its subsidiary companies have flourished and broken into new markets.

But for those companies interested in opening up a relationship with Calvary Robotics, what can they expect?

Here to shed some light on the topic is Steve Hayward, the general manager of CGS Precision Technologies. Boasting a successful career in manufacturing that started in the mid-70s, Hayward worked on the Calvary side of the business for six years before managing CGS today.

“From the outside, CGS looks like many machine shops throughout the country,” Hayward explained. “What makes CGS unique is actually our connection with Calvary Robotics.”

Although the company first started out with a focus in sourcing, it has since become a “full-service solutions provider” offering everything from sourcing to machining, programming, project management and quality inspection.

The unique challenges that come from working with a variety of organizations in a range of markets have helped to strengthen CGS, as well. Today, they lend much of their support to companies in the aerospace industry and many of the Fortune 100 companies in the U.S.

So why should companies choose CGS over their competitors?

“What makes CGS unique is the fact that we’re able to offer a low-cost solution compared to our competitors,” Hayward said. He added that their team in Malaysia enables them to “supply high-precision parts at a reasonable cost” while their large, U.S.-based vendor network allows them to offer a wide range of components to their clients.

For more content from industry leaders and experts sharing their thoughts on the world of automation, make sure to subscribe to the Advancing Automation podcast by Calvary Robotics.

The place: Webster, New York, home of Calvary Robotics and Christopher Grieve, Manager Simulations/VR, Lead Technical Artist, Sales & Marketing, at Calvary.

While Grieve grew up in Webster, he’s felt fortunate to call Calvary Robotics his home for the past six years, where he runs the virtual reality and simulation department. Grieve gave host Joe Gemma, Global VP, Sales & Marketing at Calvary Robotics, a rundown of what his department does.

Grieve always loved mechanical drawing and pursued drafting/CAD and technical illustration in college. But, throughout his time in the industry, Grieve learned to apply and blend his expertise with the artistic, technological innovations happening in robotics. The path eventually led to Calvary with VR and simulations.

“Simulations is where we create our animated videos,” Grieve said. “We take the 3D models from engineering, and then we’ll build the geometry in the computer. From there, we can leverage all the work we’ve done animating and bring it into a video game engine to create VR applications.”

From a customer perspective, what are the value adds of simulation and VR capabilities? Grieve said the videos his team generates allows a client, especially one unfamiliar with technical drawings, to gain a hyper-real perspective of how a machine runs at the rate that it’s supposed to and doing every process that it needs to.

They can see what it is they are going to buy before its engineered and designed. While a customer would need to be onsite at Calvary to experience the VR capabilities, Grieve believes VR is an excellent tool in the arsenal.

It provides clients with a real feel for every aspect of the machine they are purchasing and allows them to make tweaks before a finished product rather than making revisions after the fact.

While employees in most industries have the opportunity to work from home during the pandemic, this is not the case for those in the manufacturing sector. As a company that deals almost exclusively with physical products, FANUC Robotics started cycling employees into its Michigan headquarters once their governor gave the green light.

But how have its employees adjusted to new workplace expectations?

Advanced Automation host Joe Gemma reached out to Mike Cicco, President and CEO of FANUC in America, to learn how his company is faring during the pandemic and how the coronavirus will impact the automation industry as a whole.

Compared to other industries, business is booming for FANUC. Cicco recounted how companies reached out to them in the first few days of shutdown for robots to build ventilators, masks, test kits and more.

“We saw a large growth in robot sales during that time, almost exclusively due to the pandemic,” he said.

He also noted that many manufacturing organizations with global supply chain networks were severely impacted by the effects of the pandemic in different countries. Because of that, business leaders are now looking to diversify their supply chains and keep things local where possible. However, this is a movement that has been taking shape for years.

“It may have highlighted it or accelerated it in some ways, but the concept of reshoring or localizing or diversifying a supply chain – the pandemic hasn’t created these concepts,” Cicco said. “It’s just something we’re talking about more today.”

Listen to the full episode for the latest insights from thought leaders and experts in the world of automation.