The Automation Road Map

Welcome to The Robot Industry Podcast #117. I am thrilled to introduce you to Ben Whitney from ARMO Tool and Abuma Manufacturing, both located in London, ON. Armo Tool is a long-time machine builder, robot integrator, and tool manufacturer with a specialty in dies and progressive dies. Abuma Manufacturing is a contract manufacturing and build-to-print company with specialties around aluminum, electro-mechanical, and stainless steel fabrication.

This is our title today: Creating an Automation Roadmap with Armo Tool’s Ben Whitney.

I am going to read your bio, Ben and let me know if I have left anything out.

Ben Whitney is the third-generation leader of Armo Tool, founded by George and Ross Whitney in 1969. Soon after graduation from U Of Toronto in 2000, he became a full-time employee at Armo Tool, where he had worked on a casual basis since age 14. Ben worked as a PLC programmer, die designer and project manager before taking on the role of president in 2008. In 2017, he earned a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2013 from Western Engineering.

Ben welcome to the podcast, I am glad you’re here. Here are my questions.

WHAT IS AN AUTOMATION ROAD MAP?

Ben, have you created an Automation Roadmap?

Let's talk about the steps to creating this road map.

Why is this so important? 

Who owns this document?

Have you seen successes in doing this?

Do customers ever share the roadmap with you, an automation supplier?

How is this different from a specification document?

Can you help with an Automation Roadmap?

Who should be involved?

What kinds of things would be on the roadmap? 

What shouldn’t be on the roadmap?

When do you start an automation roadmap?

Have we talked about everything?

How can people get in touch with you?

Fun fact that Ben Whitney and Armo Tool both appear in a film that I helped create called "Robotics in Action, Seeing is Believing" with CFIN, Canadian Food Innovation Network. Armo Tool builds automation in the food and packaging industry and was kind enough to let us shoot video and interview him and his team for this project around food, robotics and automation.

Enjoy the podcast. Thanks for subscribing, thanks for listening.

Regards,

Jim

Jim Beretta

To find out more about ARMO Tool click here, for Abuma Manufacturing, here and you can check out Ben Whitney on LinkedIn, here.

If you would like to get involved with A3 | The Robot Industry Podcast, would like to become a guest or nominate someone, you can find me, Jim Beretta on LinkedIn or send me an email to therobotindustrypodcast at gmail dot com, no spaces.

Ehrhardt Automation is our key sponsor. Ehrhardt builds and commissions robot and custom turnkey automated solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing they understand the complex world of automated manufacturing, project management, supply chain and delivering world-class custom automation on-time and on-budget. Contact one of their sales engineers to see what Ehrhardt can build for you at [email protected]

Our co-sponsor for this episode is Anchor Danly. They are the leading manufacturer and distributor of robot and automation bases, high quality die sets, components, steel plates, and metal fabrications used in the production of tools, dies, and molds for metal working and plastics injection molding, mining and construction equipment, and general fabrications.

Keywords and terms for this podcast: Machine Builders, Tooling, Robot Integrators, Armo-Tool, Abuma Manufacturing, London Ontario, Ehrhardt Automation Systems , #TheRobotIndustryPodcast, Anchor Danly