It’s the holidays again, and with all the commotion and stressors of the season, few things go out the window faster for me than moderation: the food, the presents, the social engagements — it’s festivities: full-throttle. Admittedly, I can be a bit much. So, it should be no surprise that it is with that same intensity that I review my previous year’s goals and resolutions as well. Oh boy… it’s not always pretty. In fact, the introspection overkill is often, categorically, not helpful at all.
This reminded me of a conversation I had earlier this Fall at IMTS in Chicago. During the event, I had the chance to speak with Greg McEntyre of the newly rebranded Rethink Robotics. The company is now back after shutting down over five years ago. I think McEntyre’s perspective on the re-launch is an excellent lesson in how to soberly assess shortcomings and strategize next moves in a way that is positive and productive.
“It’s understanding where the mistakes were, our understanding where the limitations were, and the way it was originally run so that we would not duplicate those same mistakes. We can actually take that story and move forward, and not just, ‘I don’t know what happened in the past. I wasn’t there at that time.’ That doesn’t honor what the company was about.”
You may remember the Boston-based company of Baxter and Sawyer collaborative robot fame. Between the company’s inception in 2008 and its doors shutting only 10 years later, Rethink managed to secure nearly $150 million dollars in funding from blue chip investors like General Electric, Goldman Sachs, and Jeff Bezos. The company was set to become a major player in the burgeoning cobot space it helped create. So what happened?
Among other things, Series Elastic Actuators happened. The SEAs used in Baxter and Sawyer cobots (a technology Rethink had licensed from MIT) provided a significant joint flexibility that was excellent for safety but bad for motion performance and precision. As it happens, controlling a flexible manipulator is quite difficult. Potential clients had immediate concerns over repeatability and noise. There were other issues as well, and by 2015 the sum total was sales numbers coming in wildly below those of Rethink’s competitors. The company had hoped Sawyer’s release in 2015 would help pull them out of the quicksand, but the damage was done. On October 3, 2018, the company shut down indefinitely.
Within weeks, HAHN Group, a German robotics specialist, bought Rethink’s IP and began to attempt a rescue of the product line. It didn’t last long. HAHN soon realized that pivoting away from the current catalog altogether was the best strategy moving forward. Today, the company has completely changed Rethink’s product portfolio. The company is now a part of the United Robotics Group (a part of HAHN). AMRs are now a major focus for the brand, along with cobot arms that can be combined with Rethink AMRs. Specifically, the company’s Riser mobile manipulator pairs an AMR with its Reacher cobot along with a portable battery box. The combination is new to the market.
“Mobile manipulators are not widely spread and they’re still inventing and coming up with what the rules are, what these robots are supposed to be, and how they’re going to be safe in the environments they’re working in. We have rules for AGVs, we have rules for arms, but the combination of the two is actually still coming along. So, can we have the robot doing things while we’re in motion right now? Not really, but maybe in the future with some intrinsic safety, who knows?” said McEntyre.
It’s a new and exciting direction the company thinks will be a winning strategy moving forward, and they’re enthusiastic about seeing where the technology can go in the future. I am, too, for both Rethink and my own New Year goals. In 2025, I plan to take a page out of Rethink’s playbook: honesty about what’s been working and what hasn’t, a clean break with the old, and an excitement about what’s ahead.
Design World
Filed Under: Commentaries • insights • Technical thinking