Readers, ITEXPO 2024 is a fast-approaching tech bonanza taking place from February 13-15 at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida – and my word, there’ll be a lot to see and do. As our team gears up for this #TECHSUPERSHOW experience, we’re excited to see all of the event’s goings-on; attendees trying out brand-new tech innovations being demoed at the show’s massive exhibit hall, plenty of panel discussions and keynote presentations, and much more. Folks gathering together will be coming from a variety of industries; MSPs, IoT developers, IT executives, service providers and carrier engineers, industry suppliers, and many more. (To learn more, read here.)
Ahead of ITEXPO, I penned an IoT Evolution Expo-specific piece – it detailed myriad Internet of Things industry strategies, sectors where sustainable impacts are actively being made, and so on. (Basically, info we feel consumers should be aware of.)
In that vein (along with Industrial Internet of Things developments, as well), we have a story to share about another organization that’s on a mission to make everyone an up-to-speed robotic automation expert for IoT:
Namely, Formic Technologies.
Founded in 2020, Formic creates robotics and automation-centric solutions that are accessible for all U.S. manufacturing businesses. This Chicago-based “Robotics-as-a-Service” company delivers robotic automation at low hourly rates; this includes 24/7 monitoring, full maintenance coverage, and high-performing technologies that don’t require large, risky capital investments to make realities.
And recently, Formic announced the release of its new suite of software tools designed to both simplify and accelerate robotic automation systems’ deployments. This applies to businesses with years of expertise, as well as to those with no internal expertise at all. The Formic software is based on the data and experience gathered from hundreds of thousands of hours of real production time across the Formic robot fleet; as the official announcement described, “from state-of the-art Fortune 500 production facilities to small thirty-person local manufacturing plants, Formic’s software enables operations teams and delivers results for every business size.”
Further Formic specifics include:
- The Formic Core OS makes working with robotic automation solutions as easy as using your smartphone, Apple CarPlay, or even Netflix. The intuitive multilanguage touchscreen UI allows users to operate Formic robots and program the equipment to meet production needs (all without any advanced training). The software, which transforms the robot into a “smart system,” is capable of automatically adjusting to new obstacles in its vicinity, connecting to new peripherals and monitoring all sensor data, production rates, uptime, and cycle times with ease.
- Process information captured by Formic Core then feeds into the powerful Formic Colony 2.0 performance dashboard. This command center software monitors total system performance across a wide range of deployments and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the data, enabling predictive analysis of anomalies and operations to minimize (or even fully prevent) downtime. This real-time data becomes accessible to facility owners and operators through the Formic App, available for download on the Apple App and Google Play stores.
- Lastly, the Formic FAST (“Formic Automation Specification Tools”) software suite enables the Solutions Engineering team to provide robotic system specification, quoting, and augmented reality (AR) demonstrations fast, thus reducing design and deployment times from months to weeks. This accelerated service delivers, as Formic described, “a best-in-class customer experience by expediting the path to greater productivity on the production floor.”
“As the labor shortage continues to impact U.S. manufacturing to the tune of more than one million jobs going unfilled in 2023, business leaders need to figure out how to get more out of what they have,” said Formic CEO, Saman Farid. “Formic Core makes it simple for business leaders to adopt automation by leveraging the existing capabilities of their workforce to streamline production while improving safety, quality and throughput – all without any required capital expense.”
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
