Jeff Huerta is the Vice President of Sales at Vecna Robotics, a Boston based software company that helps retail and distribution companies automate their facilities. Jeff brings more than 15 years of automation leadership experience to Vecna Robotics, with a strong track record of building world-class sales operations. Prior to joining Vecna Robotics, Jeff was Vice President of North America Sales at Balyo, where he led the go-to-market strategy for the company’s self-guided trucks. Previously, Jeff held sales and marketing positions with SICK, where he managed and developed the OEM packaging sales team for the North American market.

Vecna Robotics delivers Automated Material Handling, Hybrid Fulfillment, and Workflow Optimization solutions featuring self-driving vehicles operated by their learning Autonomy Stack. Their solutions deliver value for customers in the distribution, e-commerce, warehousing, and manufacturing sectors. Their unique orchestration engine technology, Pivot.al, allows diverse robot types and humans to work together seamlessly and to flexibly yield an adaptive business solution, capable of meeting the increasingly unpredictable market needs.

Vecna's technology goes beyond traditional automation and focuses on maximizing human and robot capability to create fulfilling jobs, increase productivity, and encourage innovation.

We talk about:

Following The Pallet.

The challenge of attracting and retaining forklift drivers

New forklift drivers and the opposite of an UBER driver

Ergonomics and safety

The boring task of sitting on a forklift, 8 hours a day

24 month payback in Autonomous Mobile Robot Industry

The importance of collecting and reporting data

The future of forklift autonomous industry: sensors and software

Vecna only builds their automation around new fork lifts, they partner with OEMs to build the robots.

If you are operating a material handling and would like to get in touch with Matt, you can find him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-huerta-3463b030/ and if you would like to find out more about the company, https://www.linkedin.com/company/vecna-robotics/ and https://www.vecnarobotics.com/connect/

Thanks to our Jeff, and our partners, A3 The Association for Advancing Automation, PaintedRobot (dot 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 automated man