ForwardX Robotics: Nic Temple

IndustrialSage

ForwardX Robotics has just opened their first properties in the U.S, and Nic Temple is their Vice President of Sales in America!

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Danny:

Hey, let’s jump into today’s episode. I have Nic Temple, who is the VP of sales in America for ForwardX Robotics. Nic, thank you so much for joining me today on IndustrialSage.

Nic:

Yeah, great to be here, Danny, thanks for having us.

Danny:

Well, I’m excited to get into this, robotics and technology. It’s all the rave, digital transformation, all these things. A lot of great things, a lot of great innovations in the industry and obviously ForwardX Robotics is one of those companies that are making big for roads and innovations solutions. So real quick, for those who are not familiar with you guys, can you tell me just a quick 30,000 foot view of who you guys are and what you guys do?

Nic:

Yeah, certainly. So our customers come to us usually when they’re trying to solve problems like expanding their facilities to multiple facilities in the logistics space. So eFulfillment is a big trend right now. And they want to be closer and closer to their customers. They want to have more facilities and they need more people and they have trouble finding those people. And so we help them by automating their processes, so they can maximize the utilization of their workforce. We also are helping people from a safety perspective. So if you think about walking around in a busy logistics or manufacturing environment, you’ve got forklifts flying past you. It can be quite aggressive and it’s not always a fun place to work. So we try to create a safer environment. And we do that through our mobile robot technology. So it’s a platform that uses computer vision for navigation and it’s got fully safety rated features on board. And it basically allows you to take care of your internal logistics and automate that process in a very flexible and safe way.

Danny:

Excellent work. So you’re a VP of Sales in America. Where are you guys headquartered?

Nic:

So here in the U.S., we’re based in San Diego. I’m actually recording here today from Phoenix. We just opened up actually a warehouse here as well with some engineers that build out proof of concepts but then our headquarters and R&D is all based out of Beijing, China.

Danny:

Okay, all right, excellent. So before we get into industry challenges and topics and different ways on how you guys are solving that, and what you guys are doing from some of the solutions you guys are providing, I want to get to know about Nic, I want to get to know about you a little bit more. Tell me a little bit of your career journey. How did you start? How did you get into the space and kind of leading up to where you are and what you’re doing today?

Nic:

Yes, it’s quite interesting, in fact that when I studied mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech and one of the courses I took my freshman year was a course on autonomous mobile robots. And that was 20 years ago. And really the focus there was around I guess aerospace and defense applications. So it was a very different world then. And so from there I studied mechanical engineering, went into work in the motion control industry which is kind of related, we use silver motors inside of our robots for movement and then decided I really wanted to get into more the business side of things and had an opportunity to get into a sales role and I enjoyed the customer interaction and solving problems and really get into the applications of the technology. But I wanted to expand my horizons further as a person and my wife and I, we really enjoy traveling. So we decided to do a little bit of traveling and I decided to do a master’s in business, which allowed us to move to Australia as well as to France for a while.

And I found a job in England after that and stayed in Europe and worked again for some really innovative companies in a sales and marketing and engineering role. So B&R Industrial Automation, they’re now purchased by ABB, another company that’s known in the robotics world. And then I decided to make a move back to the U.S. So I worked for a competitor ForwardX for the past couple of years and started them up on the West Coast of the U.S. and then an opportunity came up to really lead the entire operation for the Americas with ForwardX and I jumped at the opportunity because it’s not often you find an opportunity where you get to start your own company almost and get to use somebody else’s money to do it, but yeah it’s a cool technology. I’m really excited to be here now with ForwardX and yeah.

Danny:

That’s awesome. That sounds like well, I love the traveling aspect that you said you went out, did your MBA in Australia and then you went to France and you mentioned another country, then ended up in England getting the job. Were you working over there or were you just taking some time to travel? What was that like?

Nic:

That was part of the MBA studies in Australia, there is a network of programs which would do study abroad. So even though I was already an international student, I could do a study abroad in France. So that’s what I did. I studied in Paris for five months at HCC and it was a great cultural experience being in Paris in the springtime. But some of the professors I had too like I took a class on luxury goods marketing and the creative director of Hermes was my professor. So some of the qualities and the educators that were involved in these programs really taught me a lot of pretty valuable I think skills and I definitely enjoyed that. But yeah, I worked in the UK in England and in that responsibility I was actually in a sales role for Europe and the Middle East. So I got to experience all sorts of different places, India, Dubai, Qatar, I was there on a regular basis, Malaysia. So from a sales perspective, I’ve sold on six different continents.

Danny:

That’s awesome.

Nic:

I’ve just got to find some way to sell something to Antarctica now and I’ll have the seven continents covered.

Danny:

Well, I think you’re well on your way with the whole AMR market. I mean, there’s definitely opportunities there. So I have a bit of a random question then for you. So you spent obviously time in England and in France, I’ll be there in a few weeks. I’m curious, you know, besides the touristy stuff, is there something that you’re like, “Oh, you’ve got to go check this out.” What would you recommend?

Nic:

Well, if you go to the London, I mean, I really liked the museums ’cause they’re fantastic. You don’t get museums like that, I think, in the U.S. So for me, the museums are great. The British Museum in London is really cool. They’ve got some ancient Greek things as well as the Rosetta Stone which helped decipher hieroglyphics. And then in Paris, it’s all about art. The Rodin I thought was really nice. And the Gardens of Rodin as well with statues and stuff like that are pretty unique. But Paris is a great place just to stroll the streets and you buy a baguette, some cheese, have a glass of wine and just sit on the side of the river. And yeah and relax. It’s really nice.

Danny:

Yeah that’s awesome. Okay, so obviously a well-traveled career journey, like both just from a career standpoint but also from an actual travel standpoint. Is there somebody that had an impact in your career that really stands out or maybe a milestone moment that was a big a-ha, any of those experiences?

Nic:

Yeah, so my first job out of Virginia Tech, I worked for Danaher Corporation. So I worked at a Kollmorgen division of Danaher and they had just purchased a bunch of companies and brought them together into this Danaher motion conglomerate which is, I don’t know, but at this point, they brought in a bunch of Harvard MBAs and I had some really good mentors, I think in that area and they were brought on as product managers and then lead the business operations.

And for me that kind of exposure, I think to the education that they had and the value they placed on it as Danaher as a corporation and an employer really made it kind of important for me I think to go seek out that knowledge as well and understand not only the engineering side of things but also the finance side of things. I didn’t know what a venture capitalist was or what a PE firm does and from a business perspective, that’s really important. So I wanted to uncover that type of knowledge and that was one of the reasons that I sought out and worked alongside those product managers and value their experience for sure.

Danny:

It’s awesome. So you mentioned now you’re in this new role you said it’s exciting. It’s almost like you kind of get to, I can’t remember how you phrased it, but it was like, hey, it’s almost like we’re in startup mode but I get to use other people’s money to grow and do all that. Obviously, it sounds like you’re excited about that. What really is like driving you? What gets you out of the bed every morning and you’re like, “I’m just so on fire to go do this.” What is that?

Nic:

Yeah, I’m a nerd at the end of the day, right? So I really like the technology. And for me it’s fascinating how the computer vision technology has evolved and the AI that goes into it. There’s a lot of stuff that happens behind the scenes and people don’t necessarily appreciate it completely. But if you look at like the driverless car initiatives right now, a lot of people are moving towards lidar companies. So their laser-guided sensor technology that put on driverless cars for object avoidance. And that technology is great but a lot of people think vision is the way forward. So Elon Musk is included in that. And if a car can see the same way that you and I can see, then it will be that much safer and ready for prime time.

So I think the company I work for now, ForwardX, that’s where their bread and butter is. They’re a computer vision technology firm. They not only have this AMR business, they also have a B2C business, which is a driverless suitcase. And that’s one all sorts of huge accolades at CES and other big trade shows, it’s also won an Edison Award. So for me it’s about the technology and I like being able to impart that knowledge and be a valuable resource then for my customers and guide them to the right technology that they need for their application. There’s also no point in selling a technology that’s not right so you’ve got to find the right fit and helping people bridge that innovation gap and not just be an early adopter, be able to seek the rewards of production volume of a new technology.

Danny:

That is super exciting. I’ve not heard of the autonomous luggage suitcase.

Nic:

I’ve got one behind me if you want me to show it off later.

Danny:

Oh, you might have to check that out. That’s actually really cool. So obviously, a lot of technology, we talked a lot of digital transformation, a lot of things, a lot of talk going on, a lot of hype. There’s a lot of actual solutions that are being implemented. But what are some of the key challenges that you see in the industry going on right now?

Nic:

Yeah, so there’s a lot of things. So eFulfillment is getting bigger and bigger. And people are not only having to ship things out of their facility, they also have to bring things back in like returns. People are buying multiple sizes of the same item, right? And so consumer demands are changing from a logistics standpoint. From a manufacturing standpoint, life cycles are shortening as well. So their products, they have lots of different products that they build but cars used to have a six, seven-year life cycle, now they get a two, three-year life cycle in-between models, right? So you’ve got to really be able to have a very flexible manufacturing environment as well. So our technology helps in both those aspects, really with the flexibility and that trend is really important, being able to re-utilize your assets, not by a bunch of fixed conveyoring but have something that’s still automated. And then the eFulfilment side of things and the omnichannel retail market is actually another interesting market for us where you have like in store shopping.

So if you have, like if you order Walmart is actually one of the leaders in this right now. And in terms of quality and customer happiness I think. But ultimately you order online and you go pick up in store. So somebody has to go around the store and pick all of the items and put them in. I don’t know about you but there’s so many items in those stores, it’s hard to do that efficiently even if you do it on a daily basis job. So these robots can swarm, you can have multiple robots with one person and they can swarm around with that person, lead them to the right location and the right isle and even have LEDs that light up the right place where they should be picking. So they’re more accurate with the picking. And it can do more with their picking. So this omnichannel retail, eFulfillment is really driving a lot of the growth. We’ll see the business last year in 2019 was about 40,000 mobile robots were sold worldwide. And the expectation is in three years, they will be 10 times that. The growth is going to be huge.

Danny:

That’s interesting. That’s the stat I haven’t heard. Is that in a particular vertical or is that just sort of from a national stat? What is that?

Nic:

It’s a global stat. So that includes manufacturing and logistics markets. So healthcare, retail, those other areas that we also could be utilizing and aren’t really necessarily included in that but it looks like the market size in 2023 was estimated to be about 10.5 billion. So it’s a huge opportunity. And we’re pretty excited about it. If you look at one of the other metrics we tracked is percentage of AMRs versus forklifts. A lot of times that’s what we’re placing in a manual forklift operation. And so if you look at our market share compared to that in North America, the total number was like 2/10 of a percent compared to the forklift market. I know AMRs can’t do everything that a forklift can do. But even if we get to 1%, that’s a five times growth. And the forklift market isn’t declining either. It’s got an annual CAGR in the six, 7% range over the last 15 years. So for us the growth potential, I think is exciting for me too other than just the technology.

Danny:

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned in a pretty interesting use case, just in terms of Walmart being an early adopter from this omnichannel approach and it’s interesting because what you’re seeing these retail locations will take a Walmart or a Kroger or pick a retail and you’re seeing this more. Where they’re hybrid distribution facilities now and so that’s interesting. The idea of bringing in like a pick to light solution inside of a Walmart where you have a mix of actual traditional retail customers and then you have this slash distribution. I guess it’s all distribution if you kind of like shake it all out a little bit, right? But that’s a very interesting dynamic that you hear being talked about a lot. Like that’s the last mile piece and then certainly the reverse logistics being a big challenge from logistics and supply chain standpoint but that’s very, very, very interesting. As far as how you guys are answering those challenges, how are you guys addressing those needs and really staying ahead of the curve? I think I know the answer but I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.

Nic:

Yeah, sure. So I mean there’s a couple of different things you’ve got to think about. So if you’re a manufacturer, you’re probably producing lots of different sizes of components. Same goes in the logistics space. So you could be manufacturing, you have in your warehouse a smartphone as well as a kayak. So how do you manage all these different size payloads and different weights of materials, right? So you need to really understand what you’re moving first and finding somebody who can support you across those wide range of applications that you have whether you’re moving parcel, totes, carts or pallets. And so we’ve got a solution in all those areas and continue to expand our product portfolio to do so.

The other area that you’ve got to consider too and the other thing that I think ForwardX is definitely a leader in is fleet manager. So it’s one thing to have intelligence built into a single robot, it’s another thing then to be able to manage a fleet of robots of 100 robots effectively or even 10 robots and being able to share that information if they get into a traffic jam or they find somebody’s put a pallet down on their own place and it blocks their ability to move past. So how quickly can they adopt these dynamic environments that we have either in a warehouse or a manufacturing environment, or in a retail environment? And so our fleet manager is really security on that and the AI that’s built into it, the thinking strategy that’s built into it gives a lot of flexibility to the customer at the end of the day.

So we’ve got Uniqlo, another customer of ours in the apparel industry. So in their warehouses and logistics, we found that their manual picking rate was about 90 UPH, so units per hour, that a picking associate could do by themselves. And so we went in and they said, “Well, if you hit 200 UPH, “we’ll be able to make an ROI.” So we said “Okay.” So the first pass, our competitor had gone in there already and they hit about 160. So they didn’t have a lot of high hopes that we’d actually make it to 200. And in fact actually we went in and hit 220. And then after that, we used AI and we continued to actually improve the process. So now we’re actually approaching upon 250-260 UPH. With no further changes on our side, it’s all being done just through advanced learning of the neural network and our fleet manager actually started to estimate and predict what the next orders might look like. So it can position the robots more intelligently closer to those requirements. And so for me maybe I’m getting too technical here but that’s where I find it really interesting how you can use technology to solve these kinds of problems and ultimately make a process more efficient.

Danny:

No, absolutely. And I think it’s super interesting and exciting as well. I mean, just all the use cases are jumping out in my mind. As you looked at predictive analytics and you look at more time and you’re able to pick up on trends and figure out and say hey actually we know, I remember we have a client of ours and they’re a distributor, so wine and alcohol, liquor, a little bit of a challenge for them since you mentioned all kinds of different sizes and sorts. And one of the things they’re telling us are “Well our highest traffic time “essentially where we need to pick the most “and we’re going is,” what did they say? It was the day before… Was it the day before Thanksgiving?

Nic:

Super Bowl or Thanksgiving.

Danny:

Day before Thanksgiving or two days before Thanksgiving and he said not actually because of Thanksgiving per say, it’s actually because of all the college students coming home. And you have Thanksgiving as well, right? You’ve got Thanksgiving and they said it was all the parties that are happening I think Wednesday night or something. It was a very interesting fact. But obviously people you’ll kind of know, right? But I think it’s some of those nuances, those other types of things that just kind of go unseen that if we’re able to pick up on that, optimize that, that’s where we really start to pick up on this incremental efficiency and I think it’s pretty cool, pretty exciting.

Nic:

Yeah, it’s really important to pick the peaks and troughs, even the seasonality as you mentioned with certain times of the year but also throughout the day, there’s peaks and troughs as well and being able to predict when those are going to happen based on delivery cycles or pickup cycles of trucks or whatever it might be. Those are when humans take breaks as well, we need time off, right? We fatigue, so all those things need to be analyzed and part of the system to make it more intelligent.

Danny:

So I’m going to ask you my last question and I’ve talked to a couple of robotics companies, I always ask them, it’s a tough question. But the whole piece around, the human capital piece, the piece on hey, robotics they’re taking jobs away from people. How do you answer that?

Nic:

Yeah, I like to think that we’re supplementing the workforce. We’re making somebody do their job better. We have a collaborative technology. It’s not one that’s, it’s made to actually be used around people. And it’s got safety ratings and actually that we’re actually even on a board right now developing an international standard around the safety that’s required for manufacturing and what a risk assessment also looks like for someone who’s doing the installation. So really, our technology isn’t used necessarily to replace people, it’s to create a more harmonious environment, a safer environment for the customer at the end of the day and for their workforce. And we find people really take the technology to heart as well.

So I had one customer who had three robots and they did a naming competition and they called him Larry, Moe and Curly, right? So humanizing also the technology is also another way to get people to adopt the technology and people can be scared of the technology as well. One of the things, I was living in New York City when hybrid cars first came out. And taxis were adopting the hybrid car technology and you look the wrong way coming across the street because you’re used to listening to the car and a hybrid car would fly past you and you’re like, “Whoa!” And people are getting hit. So it’s similar, right? You’ve got to make people less scared of the technology and help humanize it, I think. And people will be, from a cultural standpoint, they’ll adopt the technology and make it their own.

Danny:

Yeah absolutely. No, it makes a lot of sense. Any industry is going to go through that innovation piece and it’s just a big talking point that you hear a lot of people talk about. It’s interesting too with your rate, sorry with your data point about it.

Nic:

I was just going to say, yeah, I was just going to say there’s a lot of statistics out there that say adding this type of technology actually doesn’t affect the job levels or the job rate. I think that’s sometimes the case. Sometimes it’s not the case but I think ultimately if it makes somebody’s job better and safer and they’re happier in doing it I think that’s a benefit for the logistics provider or for the manufacturer or whoever it might be.

Danny:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I was going to say too with the data rate that you mentioned, I think you said it was 40,000 robots were purchased globally. Well, there’s a lot higher jobs there. And if it’s looking to I think you said 10x or I can’t remember the stat but it’s the growth rate. It’s not necessarily coming for your job immediately right then in there. But anyways, Nic, listen, I’ve enjoyed our conversation. And I think this really a lot of great interesting stuff here. I think what you guys are doing is pretty cool. I think you guys will be at MODEX in Atlanta here in a few weeks. Is there anything in particular that you guys are like debuting or showcasing?

Nic:

Yeah, so ultimately ForwardX is new to the U.S. so it’s officially our U.S. launch to the market. So we’re really excited, we’ve got a couple of demonstrations that we’ll be showing off. One is moving a cart, so we’ve got a lift and cart movement solution. And then we’re also showing off some of our fleet manager and computer vision technology around a picking rack. So it will lead a user to the right location, they can pick the item, scan it, there’s RFID built in and so we’ve got two live demonstrations that we’ll be showing off to really just get people comfortable with the technology. We are going to be the only vision-based technology at the show. So we’re pretty excited to be the first to be able to show off a true visual based AMR as well.

Danny:

All right, well excellent. Well, we’ll be at MODEX as well. We’re excited to come check you guys out to take a look at this great technology firsthand, and so if they have any questions and would like to reach out to you, what’s the best way, is it a website or LinkedIn? You tell me.

Nic:

Our website is undergoing some growing pains right now. So I’d say LinkedIn is probably the best. So we do have a nice LinkedIn page that we recently updated and is up to speed. And you can find me of course on there as well. So feel free to message me. And we also got a phone number on our website for the U.S. based office. So feel free to give us a call.

Danny:

All right, perfect. Nic, thank you so much.

Nic:

Thank you, nice to speak with you, Danny.

Danny:

Likewise. Okay, well, there you go, there you have it. Another episode of IndustrialSage. I really enjoyed– listen, I love talking to all these robotics companies. I think it’s super interesting about all the different nuances and the different technologies that are coming on board. I think a lot of these use cases I think the Walmart explanation I thought was very interesting just as far as how companies are starting to look at using from a distribution standpoint, like the idea of rolling out an AMR to go pick products so that you can get them to your car versus having somebody go and do that. If it takes them, if they’re going to be a lot more efficient. I think that’s very, very, very interesting.

And obviously there’s a lot of applications that we’re going to see as they continue to roll out. So, if you’d like to check them out, ForwardX Robotics, you can take a look at their website, look them up on LinkedIn, and we’ll have their information in the show notes. So yeah, that’s all I’ve got for you today. Thanks so much for watching and I’ll be back next week with another episode of IndustrialSage.

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