I caught up with Sam Bouchard, CEO of Robotiq based out of Montreal. He started Robotiq with his co-founders: JP and Vincent in 2008. Their motivation was that they could bring something better to the industry. But 2008 and 2009 was a difficult time in manufacturing industry for any business, let alone a startup robot accessory company.

Flexibility was at their core, and their first product was a three finger gripper that came out of the Laval Robotics Lab, developed for the nuclear industry and the Canada Arm. They eventually simplified the gripper for industrial applications and at the same time the collaborative robots hit the market.

Topics discussed in the pod:

Applications: machine tending, palletizing, assembly

Flexibility and ease of use, manipulation and force control, sensing.

Robotiq's DOF Degrees of Freedom online community, for sharing manufacturing know how.

e learning on the Robotiq website - how to build cobot applications

LeanRobotics.org

Robotiq's innovation and approach includes deep customer listening, prototyping, with a focus on iteration

We talk about Montreal as being a center of innovation robotics and labs and now commercialization from those early investments with companies such as Vention, Mechademic

Sam sees a bright future with collaborative robots with a shortage of people and robot programmers.

Thanks to our Sam Bouchard for coming onto the podcast, and our partners, A3 The Association for Advancing Automation, www.PaintedRobot.com and our sponsor, Ehrhardt Automation Systems.

Enjoy the podcast!

Jim / Customer Attraction & The Robot Industry Podcast

If you would like to get involved with 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 therobotindustry at gmail dot com, no spaces.

Our sponsor for this episode is Ehrhardt Automation Systems. Ehrhardt Automation builds and commissions turnkey automated solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing, project management, supply chain management 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]

Key words and terms for this podcast: Sam Bouchard, https://www.robotiq.com, lean startups, palletizing, collaborative robots, cobots, Robotiq, DOF, Degrees of Freedom

Sam Bouchard has written a book called Lean Robotics: A Guide to Making Robots Work in Your Factory you can get it here: https://www.amazon.ca/Lean-Robotics-Making-Robots-Factory-ebook/dp/B075VCLT8G