Saman Farid believes that robots are a means to an end and while their importance is derived from the output they create, many companies are focused solely on the hardware itself. In this episode, we are joined by Saman Farid, the CEO of Formic which is a privately held Robotics as a Service (RaaS) company that focuses on the output rather than the hardware. He sheds light on the concept of Robotics as a Service and what this really means. On today’s episode, you’ll hear about the barriers to robot adoption in manufacturing, the development of technologies that make it possible to use industrial robots in a collaborative way, the challenges of implementation in this field, and how the declining costs of hardware are opening up more opportunities in this sector. You’ll also learn more about why Saman believes that in the future, companies will either be building new robots, or operating them and generating value from them, but not both. To hear what excites Saman the most about the advancement of robotics in the next five years and why he believes that robots are not stealing jobs but creating more, listen now!

• Saman Farid’s thoughts on the concept of Robotics as a Service and what this really means.