Industrial Next wants factory robots that switch tasks in minutes
Two former Tesla factory engineers explain why retooling, not robot arms, is the slow part of automation.
San Francisco startup Industrial Next, founded in 2021 by former Tesla engineers Lukas Pankau and Allen Pan, builds self-contained robotic stations driven by its own foundation models linking vision, task context and motion. It says a production line can be retooled in minutes instead of weeks without traditional programming. On the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield stage the company announced it is working with BMW Group's Technology Office to evaluate its dexterous manipulation for manufacturing.
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Flexible manufacturing system
After exploring Industrial Next wants factory robots to switch tasks in minutes, not weeks, the older idea it updates is Flexible manufacturing system.
A manufacturing setup with enough flexibility to react to predicted or unpredicted changes, using connected machines as parallel resources.
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