Jeff Benning

CEO/Founder of Designhawk Innovations - Bringing manufacturing into the future with automation.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

@ramit Okay damn, that's pretty crazy. Still, an AC for a $9M home doesn't cost 9x more than an AC for a $1M home so I don't know that percentage of sale price is the best metric, but there are definitely scenarios where renting wins. The moral is do the math.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

Testing one of two of our new @Robotiq_Inc palletizers, soon to be deployed along with several other @Universal_Robot robots for a packaging application.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

I don't care how many times I do it, loading a giant robot into the back of a truck is still terrifying.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

We built an automated k-cup packaging system for a customer about 4 years ago. Yet many facilities still have people holding boxes under machines to catch cups by hand.
In 10 years (hopefully less), manual labor like that will look as absurd as switchboard operators connecting calls.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

Finally got some life into this old Kuka. This one originally loaded CNC machines in Germany and was deployed in 2014. It was decommissioned, sat in a warehouse for a while, and then we got a hold of it. Its headed to New York in a few weeks to make jet aircraft parts.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

Grabbing a single surgical needle out of a bucket of them was challenging, but we found a way to do it.
A hopper dumps bunches of needles onto a vibratory plate. The plate vibrates to break up the needles. A camera mounted above the plate finds which needles have enough space around them to be grabbed one at a time.
The robot uses a magnet to pick up an individual needle and places it on the conveyor which takes it off to be cleaned.
This was done by hand prior to our automation. 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Surprise, surprise, this customer had a hard time finding enough people that wanted this job.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

Palletizing is one of the quickest wins in automation a manufacturer can do.
Easy to install, easy to program, minimal hardware.
We got this one installed at the customer in less than a day and taught them how to write their own programs the next day.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

There's something peaceful about coffee and programming at 7am.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

Well it only took 12 hours on a Sunday to get all three robots running, but here they are. Now if I can figure out how to synchronize them...

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

I very literally have the workshop I dreamed of as a kid.
If little Jeff could walk into this shop today, his mind would explode.
I can build almost anything I can dream of.
And I love to share the space. There's an odd satisfaction in seeing friends use the equipment for their personal projects.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

I showed a customer how to use a robot we installed in his facility. I showed him how to manually jog the robot from point to point. Then I showed him how he could put it in "auto" mode, click a button on our touchscreen, and the robot would automatically move through the points.
His mind was blown.
"That's so F-ing cool"
I had that same feeling several years ago. I remember editing a for-loop to make the robot handle a part slightly differently and I thought it was the absolute coolest thing.
How can a simple line of text move this massively complicated machine?
It was great seeing that light in someone else.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

Automation in manufacturing is inevitable.
This was a job previously done by people which was boring, repetitive, and could even be dangerous.
This system didn't replace anybody. Instead this customer was able to acquire new business because they were able to lower prices.
People got put on higher importance tasks.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

I used to think I was only ok at programming robots. Then I worked on updating programs that others had written and I realized I'm really good at programming robots.
Not because their code was bad - quite the opposite.
It was because I was able to read their code, understand it quickly, and iterate on it in a similar manner.
Good code leads to more good code.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

@ErikKaiser It does seem to trend that direction

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

Sometimes the best way to learn is to do.
I got into robots because I was the youngest engineer at my first job by about 20 years. They figured “he’s young, he must know how robots work”
I didn't.
Resources are still pretty lacking for learning robot programming but 10 years ago they were even worse. After a bunch of trial and error, and reading manuals, I eventually got pretty good at it. Sometimes the best way to learn is to do.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

It’s pretty cool knowing that at any one time, over 40 robots I’ve worked on are out there making stuff every day. Some of them overnight too.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

@AlbyHojel DM me

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

This was probably my favorite demonstration at #Automate2024.
Apera's vision system could identify bolts with identical length and diameter but different thread pitches in under a second.
It could even command the robot to pick a bolt that was sitting under another bolt. This is miles ahead of a 3D bin picking systems we used just two years ago. Exciting to see the progress!

[Apera AI @AperaAI]

What could you do with Foresight? Find out how vision-guided robots just got more efficient. Join us for a deep dive into our technology at Automate 2024. @ABBRobotics

#Automate2024 #robotics #vision #AI #advancedmanufacturing

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

This was one of the more innovative proof-of-concepts we did for a company that packages hot coffee sleeves.
Lots of pneumatics and moving components to get the sleeves to line up how we need so the robot can pack them.
The sleeves go through a gluing and folding process upstream and eventually wind up on a conveyor. Typically, a person would scoop up the sleeves and put them in a box.
All day, every day. It’s a boring, tedious job, that’s prone to error.
We developed a robotic system that can put the sleeve in the box. Estimated ROI is under two years. Then the box is being packed for free.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

10. HMI software that enforces good design practices. Too many operator interfaces are just rows of boxes with no intelligible way to use the system.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

Companies I’d start in robotics/manufacturing if I had ten of me.
1. Solidworks AI assistant – Design by voice dictation seems like it should be within reach by now. Certainly a way to generate parts based on what’s already in the model, kind of like Copilot for programming.

[Jeff Benning @TheJeffBenning]

9. Take a picture of an electrical cabinet. AI will look up part numbers, find the pinouts of all components, and generate the wiring diagram based on the picture. Alternatively, for new cabinets, enter all the components you need, IO map, power distribution, etc. and it will generate the diagram.