Recently appointed Director of Product Management, Marina Magnabosco shares her views on why it’s the right time to add vision to the sensor mix in warehouse and factory real-time logistics.
Industrial automation is all about achieving a precise balance of efficiency and performance without compromising on safety. A wide range of technologies have been deployed over the last decades as automation has transformed operations. What attracted me to Slamcore is the state-of-the-art technology of visual SLAM and advanced AI that delivers new and powerful solutions for industrial automation applications. The time is right for these innovations to make an impact at scale in real-world deployments.
My knowledge of cutting-edge technologies and products for autonomous vehicles, first with Guidance Automation in the manufacturing and warehouse automation sector and then with self-driving vehicles at Oxa (formerly known as Oxbotica) has given me insight into the importance of robust, reliable, and precise spatial intelligence in our digital economy. I’m already applying these experiences to quickly make a positive impact with Slamcore’s customers and prospects in the exciting industrial positioning sector.
An Inflection Point for Vision
The manufacturing and warehousing industries remain vital elements of the global economy. They have evolved over the past decades and have established tried and trusted approaches to delivering efficient and safe operations. However, challenges ranging from ongoing economic issues to scarcity of labor, from rapidly evolving consumer habits to climate crisis among many others, are disrupting ‘business as usual’ approaches. Innovators like Slamcore have a critical role to play in helping warehouse and industrial facilities to adapt and remain efficient, agile, and safe amidst these changing circumstances. For warehouses and factories, it’s all about efficiency of throughput – in essence, the faster goods or raw materials can move through a facility and out the other end as a finished product or for onward distribution, the better the profitability. For decades, automation has played a role in achieving this, but the complexity, speed of change, and demands of today’s market are emphasizing some of the drawbacks of existing positioning technologies. Adding vision to the sensor mix for safe and efficient positioning in these dynamic spaces is one of the key opportunities for visual spatial intelligence to add value.
Listening to Customers
Today, thanks to Slamcore, visual spatial intelligence can deliver accurate, robust, and reliable real-time location and mapping in large-scale, dynamic, and fast-moving environments. But, no one wants to throw out existing investments, and different technologies have different strengths and weaknesses. So, what excites me about this new role, is showing how Slamcore’s visual spatial intelligence can be integrated as part of a multi-sensor set-up, to deliver significant new capabilities that enhance efficiency and reliability without compromising safety in today’s industrial environments.
In the past weeks since joining, I have already experienced the rapid impact that we can make. Listening to customers’ challenges and applying Slamcore’s cutting-edge technology to deliver solutions that work at a commercial scale is hugely rewarding. It’s a two-way conversation, listening to learn about our customers’ challenges, and explaining how adding vision can help solve them. This approach not only lowers the technological barriers to deploying real time location systems at scale but leverages existing investments in localization. Our approach creates solutions that are greater than the sum of their parts.
Diverse Thinking is Key
Finding solutions to these complex localization, tracking, and mapping challenges in ever-changing industrial environments requires different thinking. An engineer by training, it has always been my passion to find new ways to solve problems. Learning to speak up, and have confidence in my own experience, capabilities, and opinion has been one of my most important accomplishments, so I’m pleased to see that these are valued characteristics across the business. Today, diversity of all kinds is recognized as essential to understanding, innovating, and delivering value to employees, customers, investors, and our whole community. Whilst there is still work to do, I am already impressed by Slamcore’s diverse culture and approach to supporting and encouraging people from all walks of life, backgrounds, and environments to contribute their thinking and input. I hope that I can play my part in continuing to develop this culture at Slamcore.