The Future of Robotics as a Service with Saman Farid of Formic

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!

Key Points from this Episode

• Saman Farid’s thoughts on the concept of Robotics as a Service and what this really means.
• Thoughts on how innovative technologies tend to take hold during tumultuous times and how the pandemic is driving adoption.
• The labor shortage and supply chain challenges and how Formic is trying to formulate ideas to address these issues.
• The barriers to robot adoption in manufacturing.
• The types of tasks that Formic has had the most success in automating and those that still need work.
• The dynamic Saman sees in the use of collaborative robots versus more traditional caged-off industrial robots.
• The development of technologies that make it possible to use industrial robots in a collaborative way.
• The challenges of implementation and training in the development of this field.
• Business alignment challenges between companies that build robots and those that do Robotics as a Service.
• Saman’s prediction that the differentiation between the hardware vendors of robots is decreasing and specialization is increasing.
• Thoughts on the declining costs for the hardware of robotics and the opportunities that this opens up in manufacturing.
• Saman’s answer to the common question “Are robots stealing and destroying jobs?”
• What excites him the most about the advancement of robotics in the next five years.