Pramod Ghadge is a CEO and Co-Founder of Unbox Robotics. His work is focused on finding innovative solutions through AI, Robotics and Supply Chain Process Design. Today’s hot topics are how automation and robotics can be beneficial in every industry, especially during crisis like the one we’re facing right now.
1. Tell us about your current role and about Unbox Robotics? What projects are you working on?
I am running Unbox Robotics as a CEO. I co-founded the company last year to address problems in warehousing sites through AI, Robotics, and Supply Chain Process Design. Currently, we are working on 1st of its kind solution to sort packages/items using AI-enabled Robots. We are saving both the area and capital required to automate the parcel sorting process using our unique offering.
2. What are the innovations that we’re observing right now?
In various industries, companies are deploying AI-based systems to boost their productivity and process reliability. We are looking at the strong adoption of automation across sectors through physical as well as software bots.
3. How Industrial Internet of Things is beneficial to manufacturers and what are the drawbacks? Do you think it could be a spot for hackers and how cybersecurity is involved in this concept?
The IoT can improve the productivity and reliability of processes in the manufacturing and logistics industries. Cybersecurity is definitely a crucial part of implementing IoT driven solutions. If you fail to do that, the IoT enabled systems, businesses and even sometimes human lives will be at risk. Cybersecurity, if implemented well, can protect the business’s data, processes, and associated systems and people.
4. How robotics and automation are shaping the industries right now?
We are observing an increased adoption of robotics across different fields such as manufacturing, agriculture, retail, logistics, medical industry, etc. The industry is introducing robots to address areas such as human safety, labor shortage, rising labor costs, business continuity plans, etc. to name a few. It’s not only about cost-cutting, but also about making your business processes robust irrespective of any disruption like Covid-19, which we are going through at the moment. For e.g. some of our customers aren’t getting enough workers in their warehouses due to the Covid-19 situation, and even if they get people – they have to practice social distancing while working. This results in a drop in productivity. Here the robots can help such companies to maintain or boost productivity while observing social distancing.
5. What are the challenges in your industry face right now?
Amidst lockdowns, managing the supply chain, and maintaining or even increasing the company productivity are the priorities these days. We see in the long term, the Covid-19 situation is going to increase the demand for robotics and automation, hence we need to get ready for such a demand going forward.
6. How do you come up with ideas?
I think the ideas are driven by the problems we see in the industry or at customers’ end. The ideas come once we try to address the customer’s problems from their perspective. It doesn’t make sense to just build a cutting edge technology product if you aren’t solving customer’s problems.
7. Who are the inspiring people you follow on social media?
I generally follow industry leaders such as Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos who are making a huge impact on people’s lives through their organizations.
