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Ramia Lloyd:
Welcome to the TechTrends Podcast where we discuss the latest manufacturing, technology, research, and news. Today's episode is sponsored by the MFG Conference. I'm Ramia Lloyd, and I'm here with?
Elissa Davis:
I'm Elissa Davis.
Stephen LaMarca:
Stephen LaMarca.
Ben Moses:
And I'm Spooky Moses. Welcome to Halloween, guys.
Ramia Lloyd:
It's like in The Simpsons.
Elissa Davis:
Spooky Moses.
Ramia Lloyd:
Treehouse of Horror.
Elissa Davis:
Treehouse of Horror's episode.
Ramia Lloyd:
They always have the spooky names.
Elissa Davis:
I want to figure out how to put on the video, get blood to come down like spooky.
Ben Moses:
Yeah. That would be a good intro.
Elissa Davis:
It's going to take seven days to figure it out, but I'll do it.
Ben Moses:
Speaking of spooky, Steve, you got some computer issues on the testbed?
Stephen LaMarca:
With the testbed, okay.
Elissa Davis:
Speaking of-
Stephen LaMarca:
Okay. So, we built a workstation computer on a budget that's insanely powerful, way cheaper than what Dell could offer.
Ben Moses:
So, we chose to build a computer versus buying one ourselves.
Stephen LaMarca:
We chose to build it because it kept it within the testbed budget. We didn't have to tap into departmental budget. And it was going to be fun because every PC builder, every DIY PC builder knows you can build a PC better and cheaper than a pre-built.
Ramia Lloyd:
Pause. I don't think I'm hearing you through your mic. I'm hearing you because I can hear you, but I'm getting your levels are just really low.
Stephen LaMarca:
My levels are low?
Ramia Lloyd:
And you're all the way up, yeah.
Stephen LaMarca:
Okay.
Elissa Davis:
Shorty got low.
Stephen LaMarca:
Hold on. Just take the [inaudible 00:01:34].
Elissa Davis:
Thank you.
Stephen LaMarca:
Hold on.
Elissa Davis:
I've had some caffeine now, so I'm more on the ball.
Stephen LaMarca:
Can you hear me talk now?
Elissa Davis:
Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca:
How's it sound now?
Elissa Davis:
Say words now.
Stephen LaMarca:
How about now? Does it sound better? I feel like I'm doing a really good job keeping my hands off of this lathe.
Elissa Davis:
Okay, say words now.
Stephen LaMarca:
No, these gears mesh so well. They feel so nice.
Ramia Lloyd:
Okay, I think we're good now.
Stephen LaMarca:
We're good now?
Ramia Lloyd:
Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca:
So we got to start over?
Ramia Lloyd:
No. Ben transitioned to Steve about-
Elissa Davis:
Testbed.
Ramia Lloyd:
Yeah.
Ben Moses:
Testbed. Okay. Speaking of spooky topics, Steve, I know you had some issues with the testbed computer.
Stephen LaMarca:
Yeah, you didn't have to call me out like that. So we built the digital twin gin, our workstation PC specifically for the testbed-
Ben Moses:
And we chose to build this over off-the-shelf purchase, right?
Stephen LaMarca:
We chose to build it instead of our PC supplier, which is Dell for our corporate office because we are working with the limited testbed budget. We didn't want to tap into departmental or IT's budget for a computer build just because the one of the concepts of the testbed is to keep it accessible, which is industry talk for affordable. And so we built it ourselves and everything was going great.
Sean, who is an experienced PC builder, has done this many times before and he did most of the heavy-lifting with it. And once it was complete and all put together, we wheeled it over on a cart over to the IT, plugged it into a monitor, plugged it into power, hit the power button, bam. Post beautifully the first time.
Ben Moses:
Wow, that's nice.
Stephen LaMarca:
He's done this before. He is quite literally a professional and it was great. And we started doing some of the boring stuff like setting up the software, setting up Windows. Not creating a Windows profile or Microsoft profile. Apparently, that's like a cheat code. IT knows how to do this, but if you build your own computer, when you set up Windows initially, it will fool you into thinking you need to create a Microsoft account or log into your own Microsoft account. That's useless information.
Anyway. Part of setting up the software things, we have no RGB on this PC, which is no colorful lights except for one little piece, which is the water block of the cooler that goes on top of the CPU processor. This water block, I want to program not to be Rainbow RGB, but to be a stack light, a machine tool like stack light that specifically monitors the thermals of the PC.
Ben Moses:
Right.
Stephen LaMarca:
Because we are going to run this machine hard, right? It'll be ran hard and it will be ran for long periods of time on end. So we want to be able to monitor thermals at a glance, which is the perfect use case for a stack light. Monitoring anything at a glance stack light. So we did that, but in setting that up, you naturally monitor some of the initial thermals. And I noticed whenever we did anything on the computer, opened software, opened a program, did anything, the thermals of the CPU just shot up.
Now this is an AMD Ryzen processor. I'm not used to AMD processors. I'm used to Intel and Intel thermals don't typically spike like that. They move slowly and they move along with the thermals of your coolant or your coolers temperature as well. So typically I see the thermals move in unison. In this PC, the coolant stays stable, the processor spikes. And I've since learned that it's not a bad thing, but immediately I was like, this is not a good thing. So today, or not today, this week, Monday of this week, when of course Sean wasn't in, foreshadowing, I had Hamza help me remove the water block. We unplugged the computer, remove the water block because when we were initially building it, we had to do some test fitting. We had to do one test fitting to find out which bracket is the correct bracket to mount the water block to the motherboard.
And in determining that, we kind of smeared some of the pre-applied thermal paste. So I thought on Monday that these wonky thermals are because we screwed up the thermal paste a little bit... so I wanted to remove the water block. I applied new thermal paste because everything that I've read up on is too little is a problem. Too little thermal compound, problem, too much, not a problem. Especially with a modern paste that is not electrically conductive.
So applied more thermal paste, put it on, and I really sandwiched it on there to get maximum coverage, and torqued it down. And in the process of doing that, I must have dislodged the main power cable that goes from the power supply to the motherboard. So when we plugged everything back in and had everything set up ready to go, the computer already started. We had already set up the computer. Hit power, nothing. And I'm just like, oh geez, what did I do now?
But I went through the process of diagnosing it, Slacking Sean who I really wish was in the office, and ultimately I was able to get it to post again on my own with a little bit of help, but he wasn't physically here. So I feel good about it.
Ben Moses:
A little tinkering.
Stephen LaMarca:
But I'm still upset that it happened.
Ben Moses:
But I think that's the takeaway in building-
Stephen LaMarca:
Only to find out that the thermals are only marginally better.
Ben Moses:
You take risk on in building your own machine, right?
Stephen LaMarca:
Yeah.
Ben Moses:
If you bought a pre-built from Dell, HP, or any other workstation, they're going to ship it to you and it's going to work because it's robust enough to ship it to you. But that's the takeaway is, we have an IT department that's capable and with you, that's capable of building it. So it's a risk that we had to take because we had the boundaries of the budget, but it's still an ongoing conversation of should I build my own or buy off-the-shelf. And I think we learned some valuable lessons going through this process.
Stephen LaMarca:
Yeah. One last note, this is an extra piece of information, but we're trying to keep the workstation computer-agnostic, so to speak, from people's accounts. We're trying to keep no profiles, nobody's personal profile, nobody's work profile. Nobody will have to log into it. Sharub will use TeamViewer to log into it from India, which is really cool by the way. So he can access it at any time of day and it will stay on and it's designed to stay on.
But where was I going with this? Because we're not having any accounts logged into the computer, I'm trying to find ways around installing some of the software that we use. So Autodesk, Fusion 360, and iGIS's robot control software, they require you from the computer you want to install it on to email them for a link to download the software. Autodesk is very similar and we don't want that.
Ramia Lloyd:
Yeah.
Ben Moses:
Yeah, because it's tied to-
Stephen LaMarca:
We are going old school. By old school, I mean from a couple of years ago, an old school method of grabbing just the installer files from a computer that already has them, the old one, putting them on a flash drive, and plug it in.
Elissa Davis:
Plug it in. Nice.
Stephen LaMarca:
We're doing something physical. Gross. This is supposed to be a digital twin gin. Everything's supposed to be electronic.
Ben Moses:
It is interesting that you bring up the scenario of a shared asset because that is... the PC, everyone's going to remote to it, right? There isn't a single login. So as we move more towards cyber security, everyone's interested in maintaining their identity online, but that machine doesn't have an identity. Because everyone's going to be accessing it. So it's a very interesting scenario when you have a shared asset like that.
Stephen LaMarca:
The identity right now is the digital twin gin.
Ben Moses:
I like it.
Stephen LaMarca:
Another thing that I had to download or put on a thumb drive, the first thing that I put on the thumb drive, was the AMT logo, the official AMT logo. Because I'm going to have that as... it just doesn't look right when you have a login profile and it's just like the basic Microsoft silhouette of a person. Now, we're going to put the lease as you in there.
Ben Moses:
Nice.
Stephen LaMarca:
That'll be the cherry on top.
Ben Moses:
When this episode comes out, hopefully, we've recovered from Halloween, but
Elissa Davis:
Chocolate-
Ben Moses:
You guys tell me what's going on for Halloween? What you guys got going on?
Elissa Davis:
So I live in an apartment complex, and so you have to sign up ahead of time to be like, oh, if you want to hand out candy. And then they give out the list to people who have kids and these are the apartments that are giving out candy.
Ben Moses:
Wow. That is very formal.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah, I did it last year. I signed up and everything. Didn't get a single kid come by house.
Ben Moses:
No way.
Elissa Davis:
Nobody.
Ben Moses:
That's disappointing.
Elissa Davis:
And it kind of makes me sad. Growing up, obviously, we didn't have a lot of money, but now my parents have a lot more money, so they get the full-size candy bars. And so they were really excited when they first moved into their new neighborhood in Ashburn a few years ago, and they wanted to hand out these candy bars and they got maybe two trick-or-treaters.
Ben Moses:
Oh, no.
Elissa Davis:
So there are more kids now, so they're hoping to get more. They buy the full-size candy bars every year so every year-
Ben Moses:
That is the Death of America, our leftovers candy at your house. Who else is going to eat it but you? You have all this leftover candy and you're like, I just got to consume this the next month before Christmas when I [inaudible 00:11:12] again.
Ramia Lloyd:
And put them in your stockings. Put them in your stockings.
Ben Moses:
Ooh.
Elissa Davis:
Ooh.
Ben Moses:
That's a good idea.
Elissa Davis:
Smart.
Ramia Lloyd:
Then you don't have to think about it. They're already just put them away with your Christmas gifts. They're already done.
Ben Moses:
That's a good call.
Elissa Davis:
Smart. Yeah, but I think there's definitely been a shift away from the traditional door to door trick-or-treating.
Ramia Lloyd:
As it should be.
Ben Moses:
Because I think our community has something called the trunk-or-treat.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah, trunk-or-treat. Yes.
Stephen LaMarca:
This is new to me and I love this concept.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah, so people park their cars in a parking lot and then kids walk around with their buckets going car to car and trick-or-treating that way. And part of me, yes, I get it, it's safe so you don't have to go out on Halloween. You can do all this stuff ahead of time. But I don't know, even when I was too old to be trick-or-treating, I loved handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. That was really fun for me. And seeing these little kids in their costumes or people bringing up their babies and they're dressed up and I'm like, ugh. So I'm sad that it's not something that people do anymore or that it's kind of dying out because I think it's... and it's also just such a fun thing to do as a kid.
Ben Moses:
Well, you'll appreciate, in our community, we're doing both.
Elissa Davis:
Okay, good, good.
Ben Moses:
So it's going to be everywhere. This is like everyone's on a sugar rush.
Stephen LaMarca:
Ben's got a trunk full of TP.
Ramia Lloyd:
It's only there for the trick. There's no treat. He's [inaudible 00:12:38] kids.
Ben Moses:
Exactly. Steve, are you going?
Stephen LaMarca:
So I was really disappointed when we moved into our house last year.
Ben Moses:
Your town home.
Stephen LaMarca:
Our retirement home. I was super pumped to... because I have been renting for now, and I was upset when we moved into our last place that there was no trick-or-treaters going down the hall. Somehow some of the units had set up we're ready for trick-or-treaters, and I think they were probably depressed to find that no trick-or-treaters came by. And last year I was so pumped to finally hand out candy and I was getting ready to buy the full-size candy bars and I heard from our new neighbors that, yeah, we don't get trick-or-treaters.
Ben Moses:
Oh, no.
Stephen LaMarca:
And I was so let down. I was really looking forward to give out candy. I don't want to go for a walk, but I want to spread the joy of overeating.
Ben Moses:
Oh, you had a great costume at the lunch Halloween event.
Stephen LaMarca:
Yeah.
Elissa Davis:
Halloween party.
Ben Moses:
Dressed as warlock, wizard.
Stephen LaMarca:
This trunk-or-treat thing, this cars in chicanery, I'm really looking forward to.
Ramia Lloyd:
You're really proud of that.
Elissa Davis:
Yes. That's the title of that episode.
Stephen LaMarca:
What's the low-hanging fruit that I should have gone with, Ramia?
Ramia Lloyd:
I just feel like cars and candy was just right there.
Stephen LaMarca:
It was perfect.
Ramia Lloyd:
It's okay. We can use that as the title of the episode.
Elissa Davis:
I don't know, going back to the safety thing, I don't know, I never went trick-or-treating without my parents when I was a kid. And then when I was a little bit older when I was 12, 13, they had me go with my younger siblings. I was never by myself. Granted, should I have been taking children trick-or-treating when I was 11 or 12? Probably not. But I don't know. It was so fun. And especially when you live in the suburbs and some people do up their houses. They do up the walkway. So there was some I would not go up to because there was terrifying things there or there was a lot of people who would dress up as scarecrows and sit in the chairs, really still, and-
Ramia Lloyd:
I'm telling you, that's the last time I went trick-or-treating.
Elissa Davis:
It was terrifying.
Ramia Lloyd:
There was a guy who was sitting on his thing and he was holding a bowl of candy and me and my brother went, and my brother being a brother made me go first-
Ben Moses:
Of course.
Ramia Lloyd:
And I went to go and he literally jumped at me and I knocked the entire bowl of candy and I ran. Haven't been trick-or-treating since. Well, obviously, I'm an adult now, but-
Ben Moses:
Oh, you can still go.
Ramia Lloyd:
No, I'm not going. Traumatized.
Stephen LaMarca:
I think my favorite thing, trick-or-treating as a kid was when the adult would answer the door and they'd treat me the way I've been treated my whole life, which is just like, hi, what are you doing here? What do you need?
Ben Moses:
Can I help you?
Stephen LaMarca:
You'd be like [inaudible 00:15:27].
Ramia Lloyd:
Right.
Stephen LaMarca:
Aren't you supposed to say something? It's like, oh, trick-or-treat. And my dad who would walk us around the neighborhood would just get a kick out of that. He was like, you're not just entitled to candy. [inaudible 00:15:41] words. That's so funny.
Ben Moses:
Ramia, can you tell us about today's sponsor?
Ramia Lloyd:
Yes, I can. The MFG meeting brings together manufacturing technology, industry leaders to address key business challenges and provide actionable solutions. Sessions cover a wide range of topics including workforce, economic, supply chains, leadership, politics, and mores. The unique meeting experience provides unparalleled opportunities to network with executives from companies that make, sell, service, and support MT. These peers and competitors will learn from each other, build long-lasting connections, and share insights that will benefit their business. Go to amtonline.org/events to register.
Elissa Davis:
Woo-hoo.
Ben Moses:
Thanks, Ramia.
Ramia Lloyd:
Anytime, Ben.
Ben Moses:
Elissa, you found a really interesting article concerning the timeframe that we're talking about this.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah. So it's very timely for Halloween about Hershey's. And quick segue, or sidebar aside, whatever, I went to the Hershey's store in Times Square last year for the first time and I was just like, wow, this is really cool. But also it's also kind of really disappointing.
Ben Moses:
Oh, no.
Elissa Davis:
Because everyone hypes it up and then you go and you're like, uh.
Ben Moses:
So conflicted emotions.
Elissa Davis:
It's fine. They've just got a lot of Hershey's branded... Okay, I should also say I don't like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. And that's the place where you can make your own Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. And so that's their big thing. I know. I told Ramia this last week and she was like, I don't think I trust you anymore. I don't like peanut butter, so I don't like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. So that's their big sell is the giant peanut butter cups that you can make and I don't like those. So maybe that's why it was so disappointing for me.
Ramia Lloyd:
It sounds like you just solved the issue yourself.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. So Hershey's, it's the manufacturing drive and it's unwrapping Hershey's 250 million manufacturing upgrade.
Ben Moses:
It's a big investment.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah. So the Chocolate Maker's Advancing, Agility and Automation Initiative leans on digitalization to boost visibility and optimize operations and procurement. So back in February, it announced plans to spend up to 250 million through 2026. So this is obviously through next year as well. And it aims to digitize and automate Hershey's processes, optimize procurement manufacturing, and accelerated research and development and planning to boost visibility and streamline operations.
Ben Moses:
One thing I do really like about this article, Elissa, is the commonality of this to every manufacturer that's going on. So, yeah, when you talk about food, no one's really interested about food manufacturing unless you're watching how it's made. But what Hershey's doing is basically what everyone is looking for in manufacturing is to improve operations.
Stephen LaMarca:
They're turning into a chocolate forge.
Ben Moses:
A chocolate...
Stephen LaMarca:
My question is, but will the chocolate be good, finally?
Elissa Davis:
I think it'll just be the same Hershey's. So, okay. Steve and I were talking about this before the episode started, is that as great as Hershey's is, European chocolate is always going to be superior
Stephen LaMarca:
It dunks on it.
Ben Moses:
So it's not the debate of Hershey's, it's the debate of American chocolate versus European chocolate.
Elissa Davis:
And it all has to do with the milk fat they use, the type of chocolate, they use the ratios that they use.
Stephen LaMarca:
That our food industry pumps us full of poison. Okay, I'm done.
Ben Moses:
This comes from the person that doesn't like Reese's pieces, by the way.
Elissa Davis:
Okay. I don't like Reese's pieces or Reese's Cups, or anything with peanut butter.
Ramia Lloyd:
Reese's Cups and Reese's pieces are two different things. I don't like Reese's pieces either, but Reese's Cups are a go.
Elissa Davis:
I will say I did recently try peanut butter M&M's on accident. I didn't hate them.
Ramia Lloyd:
On accident. You thought they were-
Elissa Davis:
No, so coming back from MT forecast, I got this bag and it was peanut and regular M&M's and I didn't realize there was also peanut butter M&M's in it.
Ramia Lloyd:
Okay.
Elissa Davis:
So I grabbed one thinking it was a peanut M&M, it was not. It was a peanut butter M&M. I didn't hate it. But I think it's all about the proportion and the peanut butter because for me, the Reese's peanut butter is way too salty.
Ramia Lloyd:
I think that's understandable.
Elissa Davis:
Anyway, so before Hershey's announced this initiative, they did make a 1 billion investment in its supply chain network, including a new chocolate facility, additional production lines and upgrades to existing lines.
Ben Moses:
Did you see the email around going out... let's open another chocolate factory.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah.
Ben Moses:
That's a random subject line.
Elissa Davis:
More chocolate.
Ramia Lloyd:
More chocolate.
Elissa Davis:
That's what we need.
Stephen LaMarca:
The person who banged out that email definitely had brown around their [inaudible 00:20:11].
Ramia Lloyd:
They were watching Willy Wonka in the background.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah.
Ben Moses:
One thing that the article kind of goes... are some of the numbers, some of the potential savings that they're thinking about.
Elissa Davis:
So for the numbers there, so it's slated for completion 2026. They expect to save $300 million annually with 30% of the savings from supply chain productivity. So this year alone in 2024, they expect to save $100 million with 10 million coming from supply chain savings and the remainder of the SG&A.
Ben Moses:
So they're getting a return on investment immediately if you look over the lifespan of the project. That's impressive. I really like the article a lot because it does talk about there is a need... I mean, Hershey's big, right? I think the perception is let Hershey to spend whatever money... spend a billion dollars on it.
Elissa Davis:
Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca:
This makes me feel better about Hershey's.
Ben Moses:
Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca:
Clearly, they don't invest in the chocolate, but they invest in making it.
Elissa Davis:
Look, sometimes you just need a piece of Hershey's chocolate. You just need that not great American chocolate.
Stephen LaMarca:
Lindt chocolate, the Swiss stuff.
Elissa Davis:
Okay. But the price comparison.
Stephen LaMarca:
Okay. Okay. Go to Aldi or Lidl and get their non-brand German/Swiss chocolate that is less expensive and it's divine. And I'm sure that the Swiss and the Germans look at that chocolate and be like, this is the stuff that we line our gutters with.
Ramia Lloyd:
Not the gutters.
Stephen LaMarca:
But it's so good.
Elissa Davis:
Can you imagine gutters lined with chocolate?
Ben Moses:
Speaking of divine, tell me about your favorite 3D printers.
Stephen LaMarca:
So actually, the article I was going to talk about was the IFR Robots Report.
Ben Moses:
Oh, I'm sorry.
Stephen LaMarca:
Oh no, that's okay. That's okay. I do want to see 3D printed chocolate though. We would have a cold plate instead of a hot plate.
Ramia Lloyd:
Okay, so I did look it up. There is a 3D printer. You can buy a cocoa press, which is a 3D printer that prints chocolate. You're welcome.
Ben Moses:
We have to consider this for the testbed next year.
Ramia Lloyd:
I'm just saying-
Elissa Davis:
Ben and Steve were like, so we know where our budget's going towards.
Stephen LaMarca:
Can we up the Halloween budget next year?
Ramia Lloyd:
I'm just saying.
Ben Moses:
Tell me about IFR and the robots.
Stephen LaMarca:
So the IFR recently released their 2024 World Robot Report.
Elissa Davis:
Real quick, what's IFR?
Ben Moses:
International Federation of Robotics.
Stephen LaMarca:
Thank you, Ben.
Elissa Davis:
Cool, thank you.
Ben Moses:
I hope.
Elissa Davis:
I hope.
Stephen LaMarca:
So the 2024 Robot Report reports that there is a new record of four 4.28 million factory robots worldwide at use, which is amazing because the full number is 4,281,585.
Elissa Davis:
Wow.
Stephen LaMarca:
Down to the significant figure before zero.
Ben Moses:
So did they say robots?
Stephen LaMarca:
They specifically said robots. They didn't say it's particular type of robot. The only thing that they emphasize was factory robots.
Ben Moses:
I think it is important because robots is a subset of automation. So we look at this full scale of automation back to what Hershey's doing, right? Robotic arms are important, robots are important, but it does include conveyors, it does include material handling piece of equipment. So the scale of automation parallels where the IFR is headed on the robots. And I think that's an important kind of differentiator in this conversation.
Elissa Davis:
Well, Elon Musk thinks that robots are going to outnumber humans by 2040.
Ben Moses:
Oh, I'll see that in my lifetime.
Stephen LaMarca:
And you know what, clearly he hasn't consulted the numbers because the only countries actually that have scaled up in robotics over the last year are China and South Korea. There may be another one there, but it's mostly China and South Korea. Everybody else, US, Germany has stayed stable while other countries have actually rolled back their use of robots.
Ben Moses:
Also, if you get a one-to-one for robots, you're probably not automating correctly.
Elissa Davis:
Correct. Yeah. Well, Elon Musk.
Stephen LaMarca:
Yeah, I know. And if you round off the numbers, there's 8 billion people in the world to 4 million robots. There's 2000 to 1. We still got them. We're okay.
Elissa Davis:
And he's implying that in 15 years we're going to be able to close that gap.
Stephen LaMarca:
Yeah.
Elissa Davis:
Exceed that gap.
Stephen LaMarca:
15 years, I think we'll get close, but I don't think-
Elissa Davis:
But like Ben said, we're not automating correctly if it's a one-for-one exchange.
Ben Moses:
Tell me more about IFR.
Elissa Davis:
Sorry.
Ben Moses:
What else you got?
Stephen LaMarca:
Oh, that was all I really had. Those were the crispy deets.
Ben Moses:
No, I appreciate that.
Ramia Lloyd:
Crispy deets.
Ben Moses:
Because we are getting towards the end of the year, and we're looking at automation getting into next year. We've got a AIM committee early next year going to be held at the A3 Business Forum, which is a fun time. But also we have our own event with partner with SPS later on in the year in Atlanta. So coming off of IMTS and getting into a mid-year cycle, I'm very interested to see where automation's headed going into IMTS '26. Because they demonstrated a ton of use cases at IMTS and I think that's very beneficial. I think that is the key for adopting, is giving our end users things they could just take home right away. They can say, this is what I want to do in my factory, and visually see that, so.
Stephen LaMarca:
I have to correct something, I misspoke earlier. So China is leading driving new installations, which is dominated by Asia currently. New installations by 70%. They're up 70% in new installations. Europe and the Americas follow. So we're lagging behind. I think the US is third place in new installations, but I misspoke, South Korea and Japan have seen slight decreases.
Elissa Davis:
Interesting, okay.
Stephen LaMarca:
Which I was not expecting from South Korea. Because South Korea's an automation powerhouse.
Elissa Davis:
But maybe they're streamlining what really does need to be automated and what doesn't.
Stephen LaMarca:
You're right. You're right. I didn't account for optimization.
Ben Moses:
Yeah. The article I've got touched on 3D printing, which we'll end today's conversation on is from the DuPont Registry. This hits on a couple of things a few of us are interested in, but McLaren is leveraging Divergent technologies for some of the components. So Divergent is either the parent company or a subset of Czinger, the super car company, and their approach was to use advanced manufacturing techniques to push the boundaries of their vehicle.
Stephen LaMarca:
Mostly generative design and 3D printing. Metal 3D printing.
Ben Moses:
Yeah, which we saw at IMTS. The Hexagon booth demonstrated Czinger car. And they had all the doors open, all the panels open, and you can see the organic nature of their body.
Stephen LaMarca:
Yeah. It looks like a piece of nature. It looked like somebody found it in the forest.
Ben Moses:
And McLaren is releasing their newest hypercar, the W1, which is fantastic looking car. I've always enjoyed McLaren's styling. It's very curved, very organic-looking. But it hits on a collaboration, which I think is very important in the future when we look at pushing advanced acknowledge, because the knowledge to actually make these parts... well, first design and then make these parts, it's not as prevalent as everyone would expect.
So additive or 3D printing is more streamlined than getting to subtractive processes. But the thought process of actually designing components that can harness that value, that's a small subset in the universe and they kind of hit it on an interesting scenario where Lotus used to do this a long time ago with their suspensions is, they used to license out their engineering capability and the manufacturing capability.
Stephen LaMarca:
And their engine building for that matter. They're very much like Cosworth.
Ben Moses:
Yep. So McLaren did a collaboration with Divergent on their W1. So Divergent designed their suspension system to increase stiffness and durability, which includes a bunch of components like the upper wishbone, the lower wishbone, and the front upright. So all 3D printing. So I do like the propagation of this process, but it definitely emphasized the need for designing for harnessing value.
Stephen LaMarca:
Yeah, I'm glad you touched on that last part, specifically... the title is a little misleading. There deserves to be an asterisk there. Divergent, while they are optimizing the suspension, they're not providing... to say that they're providing the suspension components is the misleading part that I have a problem with. They are providing the architecture and the linkages and the geometries, but the components themselves, which the main components of suspension other than the linkages and geometries and architecture is your actual hardware, which is the dampers or shocks and springs. Those are probably provided by Ohlin's.
Ben Moses:
Sure.
Stephen LaMarca:
Because if you look at the Czinger C21 that has... or 21C, excuse me, that has Ohlin suspension, which is the right choice.
Ben Moses:
Fair point.
Stephen LaMarca:
Ohlin's is the premium suspension component manufacturer for everything suspension-related.
Ben Moses:
Right? In suspension, there are semi-static parts, but then you have movement parts like suspension, the springs, or the dampeners in the springs. Right? So I agree with you, the architecture itself, to be able to harness value from this, I think that's fascinating. And I love hypercars.
Stephen LaMarca:
Ohlins was bought by Brembo recently, by the way.
Ben Moses:
Oh, that's some drama. Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca:
No, it's cool. Premium components deserve to own other premium components. It makes sense for the best brake manufacturer on the market, motorcycles, and cars to also own the best suspension manufacturer on the market for motorcycles and cars.
Ben Moses:
Sure. Thanks, Steve.
Stephen LaMarca:
Where can they find us, Ramia?
Ramia Lloyd:
Amtonline.org/resources. Like, share, subscribe.
Stephen LaMarca:
Bing bong.
Ben Moses:
Trick-or-treat.
Ramia Lloyd:
Trick-or-treat.
