#93, Anders Billesø Beck, VP of Strategy and Innovation @ Universal Robots: Bringing Robots into the Real World

0:00I think there's no doubt that all tasks that we know that are flexible, that are what we like to call high-mix, low-volume, will soon be possible. to automate.

0:18With National Robotics Week on the horizon, we are thrilled to have a special guest who's at the forefront of this dynamic industry. Anders Beck is not your typical robotics expert with a background as an elite competitive swimmer turned robotics PhD. He now leads Strategy and Innovation at Universal Robots, a global leader in robotics technology innovation. We dive deep into the world of robotics, exploring everything from concerns around jobs displacement to the widespread integration of robotics in people's homes. We'll also uncover why Denmark boasts the highest concentration of robotics companies globally and how recent simultaneous advancements in generative AI and robotics are set to potentially revolutionize many sectors and many industries.

1:13It's always a joy to speak with an absolute expert in their field, and Anders definitely fits this description, and I'm sure you'll find our conversation as enlightening as I did. Without further ado, let's welcome Anders Beck.

1:33Anders, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the Tech Leaders podcast. How are you today in Denmark? Oh, I'm great. It's nice to be here. Let's just jump straight in. The question we always ask our guests to kick these interviews off, what does good leadership mean to you, Anders? I'd say, first of all, for me, leadership is probably one of the most ingredients for having a good work life, to actually feeling accomplished, to feeling that what you do as an individual is both appreciated, but also sort of guided towards the right outcomes. So to me, good leadership is really inspirational.

2:08It really sort of provokes the right kind of thoughts. But of course, it also sort of pushes you a little bit against delivering the right things. I mean, to me, having a work life where accomplishing results is really the key thing, right? I think having a lot of hard work is one thing, but as soon as it actually yields in results, things you can be proud of, things you're happy about when you go home from work, that's what makes everything worth it. And having the right kind of leadership that pushes you towards those kind of results, that challenges you, that motivates you, appreciates you in the end is the key thing.

2:42So I really strive to do that in my leadership to motivate my teams against really accomplishing the goals they set out to do, challenging them towards sort of getting the right things. But I'm much more passionate about making sure that I can pave the way for people so I can keep them running. If they run a few degrees out of course, that's fine. As long as they're running, then we can sort of navigate our way together towards the final goal. But I think having teams that feel they cannot move forward or feel blocked one way or another or demotivated and so on is challenging for culture. It's challenging for the individual well-being.

3:21So I'm really a huge fan of a culture where you're moving forward, where things are changing, where you're sort of delivering on the goals that you set out to do. So I think that's really the key things about leadership is really to motivate things to go in that direction. Yeah, motivate, innovate. This is what I'm getting from what you said. Motivate, innovate, and just keep moving forward and always be progressive, I suppose. And then people want to follow you, don't they? It's natural that people are going to want to follow someone with those attributes because that's what leadership is all about, isn't it?

3:55So that's a fantastic answer. So look, obviously, for the listeners who are not so familiar with yourself, I know, obviously, you've got a PhD in robotics. You're an ex-national team elite swimmer in Denmark. And obviously, you've grown a career within technology and specifically robotics and automation since then. Can you give the listeners a bit of an introduction to yourself, just an overview of your career? Absolutely. So I began my early career in academia and university actually doing it as a dual career together with my period in elite sports, which, of course, were challenging days. It was like 30, 35 hours of training every week, 100 days of traveling every year.

4:33Did you have to start really early in the morning as well? I was diving into the pool at 6 a.m. in the morning. Why do swimmers always do that? They always do it really early in the morning. Yeah, but it's pretty hard to fit in two or three training sessions in a day unless you start really early. Yeah, sure. I've asked myself that question many times too. I really enjoyed that actually having that balance between focusing on sort of doing sports, which is again, back to being performance centric, being sort of really having to deliver on the things. And then, of course, also having the creative academic career that I also had through the university days.

5:12I did a lot. I sort of drove forward the whole design process. I was at the Technical University of Denmark. There was a robotic systems engineering group. And I really build a lot of the foundational building blocks for doing the robotic systems there. Learned how difficult it actually was to not only to get all the technologies to come together in the robots, but also make them do real things. Like how do you plan missions? How do you sort of plan for redundancies? What if things fail? I mean, 20 years ago, a lot of things failed in robotics. So how do you build those robust systems that really solves real world problems?

5:46That's always been a passion of mine to both bring together technology, but also sort of make it solve real problems. So when I went into my PhD, my doctorate, my focus was on mobile robots. After I left university, I moved to the Danish Technological Institute, which is an applied research institute. It's also privately held. So it was a company doing a lot of both funded research, European research projects, but also a lot of consultancy, a lot of support amongst manufacturing companies. It could be technology companies and so on. And I was there for eight years building a whole business side.

6:25I started from doing project management on areas which are all about easy robot programming, easy robot deployment. And that was really my focus area for those eight years where I sort of moved from managing projects, managing, owning and running a small business unit. And in the end, I was responsible for the whole industrial robotics segment at the Danish Technological Institute. But the key challenges we really kept running into, and it was probably unique to the Danish industry, is the Danish industry does not have a lot of high volume industry. We have a lot of sort of fairly medium-sized businesses.

6:58And often as Denmark is, the kind of products that often come out of Denmark is fairly sort of high value products. They're often fairly customized, design-centric and so on. So the key challenges that manufacturers have in Denmark is like, how do we automate these processes where the goods that come out have to be of really good quality? It may not be of the same volumes as it's known from countries that have automotive industry, where countries with automotive industries like Germany, they have both the automotive, but they also have a lot of subsuppliers that are all really focused on high volumes, fairly long longevity of the products.

7:34Well, the problem we saw in Denmark was, well, you're doing a product and you may not know if this product will be a product in two years, but you still have to do it of really high quality and you really have to automate those processes. So that has really been the key problem I've been working on, both from a technology point of view, working with a lot of smaller manufacturers. We also worked a lot with Bosch, Siemens, a lot of the big, big industrial players that were struggling with the exact same problem. Because one thing is having high volume manufacturing in the center of a factory, but there's a ton of peripheral tasks where you still have people doing pre-development or doing a small batch.

8:11or maybe they have a certain business condition that somehow leads to do it. And you need to do a small manufacturing batch of another variant or a different thing. So it was pretty clear to me that the key challenge of adopting robotics from today or from that past where it was all the high volume, very, very robust, very, very repetitive processes. Well, there's pretty good recipes today and back then to automate that. but getting to the kind of automation where either you could not afford these big installations or maybe you would want the flexibility the agility in your manufacturing to sort of be similar to what humans could do well there was still a big gap so that was really the focus of the work we did and six years ago I was approached by Universal Robots and saying hey this is amazing work you do why don't you come with us and do the same thing help making robots even more approachable and deployable in the world So for the last six years, I've been with Universal Robots doing exactly that.

9:13So Denmark is obviously becoming a very strong hotspot. Why do you think that is and how has that come about? Well, it's an amazing story, actually, because it dates more than 30 years back. The city of Odense, in particular, had a very big steel shipyard building the big container ships for Maersk. Because shipping is the other big industry coming out of Denmark. Obviously, Maersk is one of the biggest companies. It is. Merck is sort of a global leader in shipping, right? And of course, they had a lot of the ships 30 years ago, almost 40 years ago now, manufactured locally in Denmark. But they also were seeing the growth of competition from the Far East, that the shipyards were moving there.

9:57The cost competitiveness there was a growing challenge. So actually, Merck decided to invest strategically in robotic automation and shipbuilding already in the 80s. starting even at the shipyard to drive robotic processes, figuring out like, could we do all the welding processes with robots? Even 20 years ago, it gave the largest private donation to create an institute at the local university for robotics. So that even back then created that ecosystem where there was a lot of great minds coming out of the universities that really had that focus around robotics. And because there was robotic activities in the shipyard, it actually spun out a number of businesses as well.

10:35So were these basic robots that were basically like unloading shipping containers from ships? It was primarily focusing on the manufacturing process of shipping. So it was primarily welding because that's really the labor-intensive process when building ships. So it was a lot. But even welding created, especially like 25, 30 years ago, there was a lot of technologies that did not exist yet. Like how do you plan the robot motions? How do you sort of control these robots in real time when you're welding these huge structures that they're sort of bending while the heat heats them up and all that, which is not a problem for any manual welder, but it's a huge challenge for robotics.

11:16All of those sensor-based things were not yet solved. So the Institute Grow, there was an ecosystem of business-centric people that sort of came out of the universities, was exposed to the real world of robotics and manufacturing and so on. And that even 20, 25 years ago created this spiral of sort of business innovation, people coming out, new businesses started. And it was absolutely too early because there was a handful of robotic startups created like 20, 25 years ago out of this shipyard industry, which was simply too early of its day. Some of the things that are happening in welding today was what they did 25 years ago.

11:55And I think the other pivotal point for the city of Odense was there was this slowly forming robotic industry. Few other successful companies, such as the mobile industrial robot doing AMRs, logistics robots also started at the same period. And then Terodyne came and acquired universal robots for$285 million. And I think that was for the industry back then where everybody was, well, this is nice. I wonder where this is going to actually turning into this multi-hundred million dollar acquisition that was sort of moving to people that they knew from this ecosystem that actually created this company.

12:36That was sort of a pivotal moment where people realized, wow, we're not playing around anymore. This is actually a real business. This is actually growing. And then by the acquisition of mobile industrial robots, a couple of years later, really sort of spiraled this, starting to pull in technical expertise. Today, we're recruiting from all over the world. People are pulled in. We have today the city of Odense also manifested like an ecosystem growth community, a growth sort of function called Odense Robotics that supports growth in the area too. So today, I think we are around 8 ,000 people working in the robotic industry in the city of Odense alone.

13:13Wow. It must be the biggest employer in the area by quite some distance then. Yeah, exactly. And of course, it's the industry as a whole, because there's more than 160 companies working in robotics. It's startups, it's sub-suppliers to companies like Universal Robots. I wanted to ask you about the collaborative part of building robots. I know you guys talk about co-bots. I'm not sure if that's something you've trademarked or it's just a term that you use, but obviously co-bots being collaborative robots. And I'm guessing in order to achieve collaborative robots, you've probably learned a lot about the mechanics of human beings and the psychology of human beings as well.

13:48You probably learn more about humans than you have about robots, I suppose. Can you tell us about what you guys at Universal Robots, what drives you and what you're trying to build? What is the raison d 'etre of your product development purpose? Absolutely. So I think the mission for universal robots is really to create a world where people work with robots and not like robots. And I think it's actually a fairly well-explaining challenge we're facing. I think over the industrial revolutions, we've seen that things have been more and more automated, more and more mechanized, which really have led to that people working in factories today do way more repetitive work than ever before because they're attending servicing machines and so on.

14:33And at the same time, we have this younger generation that today are excited about creating things, co-creating. You know, the younger generations today, they're really looking for this meaning of the purpose of life, what they can do, how they are using their creative skills, which is actually a challenge for even attracting young talent to manufacturing in the future. When you think about a collaborative robot or a co-bot, which was actually coined, I think, about 20 years ago out of some research on co-creating, it also leans to the safety standards where you talk about collaborativeness as a way of having shared space between robots and people.

15:15But there's actually no real technical definition, say, what is a co-bot or collaborative robots as such? When we think about a collaborative robot, it is really to solve those manufacturing or technical robotic challenges where it needs the simplicity. So the mantra of universal robots have also always been, it has to be easy to program, has to be really fast to deploy, and has to be safe to be around. And if you can have a system as a whole that fulfills those criteria, then it's actually, it can become that tool of people. Because today, people still see robotics as the barrier. When we ask our customers, 38 % of them will say, well, whatever I do, it's not suitable for robots because the lot sizes are too small.

15:57There's too much variability. There's too much flexibility. But in reality, the technology has now progressed so much, that's 100 % possible. So often it is perceived challenges more than it's real technical challenges. More accessible, more approachable, and more solution focused for our customers. And that has to mean that collaborative is of course on the technical side, but collaborative is also about taking technology's partners and bringing them together. Because in the end, we need to have full robot solutions that solves real world problems. And that's not just about a robot arm. It's also putting the right tools on the arm, having the right software.

16:38And that software cannot be very generic. That software needs to be, if it's a welding robot, it needs to be speaking the language of the people that need to use it. Yeah. So I think the biggest learnings that we've had is that it's all about that application that the robot does. And it's all about having a very strong platform that makes the creators of applications, really empowers them to put in the domain knowledge into the systems and then supporting that whatever product comes out in the end is really a system that is easy to use and really delivering on those value propositions. I think one of the common misconceptions about robots is that in so many other things, when we are introducing new technologies, we are quite adamant about the training needed to adopt it, that being our new IT systems, our new processes in companies and so on.

17:33And of course, bringing in automation to companies also requires a bit of different ways of working. It requires some training to understand, to operate the machinery. And especially as it becomes collaborative technologies where often operators or at least internal staff and companies will be the ones with the daily interaction with the robots, but they may need to readjust the robot. They may need to deploy the robot to new operations, new tasks. Of course, it requires internalization of the technology where you build up new skills and you build up sort of those new ways of working. But interestingly enough, this is exactly what our younger generations are asking for.

18:14Sure. So I've seen, well, I've read about actually, but I've seen on YouTube and places like that, robots performing very complex surgical procedures. OK, things like cataract surgery. Can you maybe for the listeners, give us a couple of different case studies that you're most excited about where collaborative robots, supplementing surgeons, what surgeons are doing and things like that, that potentially use cases for robots that will become popular over the next 10 or so years? Absolutely. So we are seeing robots, and I start saying there's a little bit of gap from the robots we see in industry to what we see in surgical, both from a certification point of view and so on.

18:55That is different things. But even in so many other applications, I think what we are seeing is, especially within logistics, we know that the e-commerce is growing so fast. And sorting, distribution has historically been a very, very manual and very labor-intensive process. So the latest emergence of AI that makes it much easier to identify packages, to sort them, to handle them. We're seeing robotics within logistics growing very, very fast. Another interesting domain is actually welding. And you might think that welding has been around with robotic welding has been around for a couple of decades.

19:32And that's absolutely true. But it's until very recently been a very specialized sort of area for expert robot welders. There was a long training. Today, you can use robots like ours, where the welding systems are so mature, so that you would have easy-to-use software that speaks the exact language of welders. You will have hardware that is already defined, it's put together. So you can have a quote tomorrow saying, hey, I want a robot cell over here to help me weld. And you would be told exactly what the price is. you would be known hey i'll kind of come in on monday to install it for you i'm going to train your employees kind of set a whole thing up which means that an experienced welder will be welding manually in the morning and in the afternoon he will be a robot welder instead he could still be training the robot he could be preparing all the parts but but his productivity will be significantly higher because now he can use all that welding experience in telling the robot exactly where to wealth, getting it going.

20:36And then he can continue getting the next job set up, which at least pulls the experts away of this very hard and manual processes. So the brain of the expert is still in charge of the procedure, but the actual procedure is being carried out, not by his arm, but by an external metal arm that he is controlling or she is controlling. Okay, I understand, I understand. So what do you say to the concern around jobs displacement, essentially? Okay, well, what do you say to that, Anders? It's a discussion that's been around for robots also for decades. And I think the truth and every statistic support this.

21:11There's no ever statistic that denies this, that this is an evolution of labor rather than it's a displacement or a change, right?

21:23Today, if we keep to the welding topic, today there's a massive, massive, massive shortage of skilled welders in the world. In the US, there's more than 375 ,000 open jobs for welders out there. That's crazy, isn't it? It is crazy. It's such an old vocation. I mean, welders have been around since ancient times. You'd expect there to be more trained welders. That's completely bizarre. I'm assuming it's a training issue or something. It is a training, but it's a lack of... I think there's a generational challenge, right? Absolutely, we've been driving more of the younger generations towards higher educations.

22:04So we're seeing less and less of our young people seeking in vocational directions. Yeah, blue collar work is becoming less fashionable, essentially, isn't it? Which is sad. I think there was a recent study last year that showed that moving a career within manufacturing was the second least attractive career path for young people. So I think we need to spin this around. And then, because as I said before as well, manufacturing has also come from a place where it was a craft. Being in manufacturing and you were actually sort of, you were a trained craft person that did amazing things with your hands to now being more and more repetitive.

22:41So we need to get manufacturing back into a place where you actually are trained. You're actually deploying your skills, but you're working with robots, right? You're sort of not the person staffing and managing and operating a machine. You're actually deploying your skills with more automated, more intelligent tools that you've ever done before. And I think the good thing is this is all supported by the unions. These are all supported by everyone realizes that, hey, this is the way we have to go. And it's actually getting manufacturing back into a place where there's trained skills. So it's all about thinking about manufacturing as probably a place where we also need to raise the bar on a bit of the education we give.

23:22Yeah, yeah, you're right. I see what you mean. I think the perception of welding is having, you know, a blowtorch and a pair of goggles. And it's just this repetitive bloody hell, I'm doing this over and over again. It's dangerous. It's thankless. It's not very well paid. it is manual labor whereas you're saying you can make this a highly skilled technology orientated career essentially um so that does that does which is obviously a lot more attractive to young people they want to be part of things which are cutting edge which are exciting which are going to enrich their career do you think it's realistic that people will have robots in their homes soon you know um like to do manual tasks around the house you know we see futuristic Hollywood films from years ago when everyone had this big, you know, people had these big robots in their house doing the washing up and stuff.

24:13Is that becoming a reality, Anders? Do you think mass consumer robots, are they going to be in people's homes in the next, say, 10, 15 years? I think technology in our homes is going to change a lot, especially over the next 10 to 15 years. And already today, we are seeing robots like ours being deployed very fast outside of industry. It can be for construction work. I think we're today working together with six or seven ghost kitchens that have these container-sized kitchens only with robots inside that can be put to small offices. If you're too small to be able to staff up a full-fledged canteen, then you might have your robotic kitchen there taking order from an app and creating amazing dishes.

24:55So already today, these things are happening. I think in our homes, I still believe we have to rethink how technology will be. Yeah, yeah. It's about affordability though, isn't it? I mean, people need to be able to afford, these robots at the moment are very expensive. What I'm saying, are we going to be able to create these robots at a price point? There's a consumer market for everyday jobs and everyday tasks. Do you see that being realistic within the next 10 to 15 years? Yes, but I don't believe within the next 10 years, at least that we will see it materialize as a general purpose robot, that does everything that I do.

25:32We will see it with much smarter technologies being everywhere in, of course, we're seeing that the early start with the vacuum cleaners, the lawnmowers and so on. And of course, that's going to extend to more clever and intelligent devices in our house. And it's going to take a lot of the technologies that we see from current robotic developments and AI and all that and augment the things we have. Whereas I think it's a little bit when you look at the sci-fi movies, people imagine flying cars by now, right? But people didn't imagine smartphones. They didn't imagine generative AI. Sure, yeah. So I think like the materialization of technologies often happens in different ways than we imagine.