Automation is one of the hottest topics in the engineering and manufacturing industries. The speed, efficiency, and potential hurdles of automation are the points of discussion on every agenda – including ours today. We’re talking to the co-founder of an online platform that’s making job accessibility in the age of automation a very real and very lucrative opportunity for automation engineers in America.

Hear what Tony Wallace has to say about why automation is happening at break-neck speeds, how automation engineers and PLC programmers can stay ahead of the career game, and how America is joining the conversation.

If you’d like to learn more about Tony’s career from contractor to co-founder of Automate America, then follow along as we talk about career moves, online platforms for programming professionals, and some of his thoughts on automation as the future of America.

What lead you to creating your own automation company?

I grew up in Detroit and all of my family was involved in the United Automation Workers in America. The city that I grew up in had three auto plants right in the city. You either worked for the auto companies or you service them. I originally worked for an engineering firm, then the obvious path forward for me was becoming an independent contractor. I’d met many of them and they were making a lot of money. I thought if I want to go to the next level, I’d have to start contracting myself. I wasn’t really thinking about growing a company, but before I knew it, I had several independent contractors and that blossomed into hiring engineers. Ultimately that led us to build systems here in South Carolina.

What are some of the challenges you come across with contracting?

We had our struggles and learned that keeping an even, consistent workflow was impossible. You would get a huge one-off system, followed by a smaller one, followed by the biggest one you’ve ever had. We couldn’t keep mechanical designers, builders, electricians, and programmers busy all at the same time. I loved building automation, but it was difficult to be successful and to run a business profitably.

The problem was having the right employees with the right skills on demand. So, we set forward to helping everybody build those systems efficiently. For instance, if you have your core team of three or four mechanical designers and you get a big project, you contract the others that you need. When that part of the project is done, you move on and contract in some builders or electricians. With Automate America, if you hire too many employees you can keep them billable by contracting them back out.

Do you think automation in America is going to expand over the next few years?

Yes. I think the supply chain problems have been brought to light and importing has become much more difficult and expensive. We are seeing quite a bit of reshoring and we’re looking forward to 2022 seeing a big portion of that. A lot of companies are bringing portions of their supply chain back to America. Even if they’re not manufacturing their entire product here, they’re bringing it back, so it seems to be going well. We’re also doing work across all of North America and some in South America and Brazil and Argentina as well.

Do you think manufacturers will get a fast return on investment?

What we’re finding in America is that nobody wants to do manual labour anymore. Nobody wants to load a bracket, those days are gone. When you find an employee that’s willing to do that, the turnover is so high and the problems are immense. We have manufacturers right now that are looking for just anybody. They don’t care about background checks or drug tests, they just need to get people in. But they literally have police officers on the manufacturing floor every day because they’re having so many problems. And that’s just unsustainable, you can’t maintain a work environment like that. Those same customers are losing engineers because they don’t want to be working with felons on the floor. So all of those processes really need to be automated.

Do you have any tools or techniques that have helped you along the way?

Contracting is definitely not for inexperienced people or somebody trying to get a start in the industry. You really need to be an experienced seasoned employee to move into it. Keeping contacts and keeping a reputation, that’s the most important thing with any business, but especially in automation. While you’re an employee, you can make a good impression and really build up your reputation and network. When it becomes time to contract, you’ll know the right people to call, the right marketplace to join, and you can go out there with a reputable background.

On the financial side, before you try to start your business, make sure that you have a stable background. You don’t want to be worried about quitting your job becoming a contractor and worry about your first month’s payments. You need to make sure that that’s covered. What I recommend to everybody is to have two or three months of bills in the bank before you get started. A big way to do that, at least in America, is through credit with the bank. If you start a company here, most banks will give you a line of credit for $5,000 to start off. Then every month you go back to the bank, ask for more and keep building it up. This is one of the keys to our success – traditional bank financing.

What exciting things are you working on in this coming year?

I’m really excited about improving our social media and, and finding a way to really make that work. In the past, our social media was just imaging, an image with some information. Now we’re converting to video and trying to make that work. It’s a journey. It’s something that should always improve and I’m sure it’s going to get much better every day. So we’re looking forward to that.

What’s the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Go directly to automateamerica.com and register for free. If you’re a customer, you can post your contract there right away. We also market your products and services as a customer. You can register as a service partner and if you have a contractor, build a profile for them and get them working right away. If you’re an independent contractor, you can build your own profile and apply it to any projects you want. Everything’s upfront, So what you see is what you get. If you see a $100-hour bill rate, that’s what you get paid, and payment terms, expenses and travel are in the initial contract.

Technology has made incredible progress in the past few years. It makes our lives faster, simpler, and easier than ever. Even the way we park and drive our cars has become effortless thanks to sensitive motion detectors and sensors.

Unfortunately, there never seems to be the perfect solution. Even these innovative sensors can become dirty or clogged, which renders them ineffective or, worse, useless!

That is where Actasys comes in to save the day. This innovative automotive marketing start-up is working towards creating high-pressure directional jets that will help keep those sensors working sensationally.

I spoke to Miles Flamenbaum, the CEO of Actasys, about their work, their manufacturing processes, and even how they’re planning to licence their brand-new solution to OEMs. If you’d like to join the conversation and learn more about how entrepreneurial creativity is the invaluable skill of the day, then follow along!

How did you get involved with Actasys?

Actasys was founded at the end of 2013. Its original focus was both generally in the field of aerodynamics, but more specifically doing things that were supported by government and state grants. I joined as an adviser in 2017 and then became CEO at the beginning of 2018. And it was around that time that we pivoted towards sensor cleaning. So that’s Actasys 2.0. I’m, if you will, the founder of the second act of Actasys. Our primary focus since that point has been on sensor cleaning with some other applications all rooted in some relationship to aerodynamics.

Why does sensor cleaning on cars need to change?

There have been two significant trends that have developed over the past couple of years within the automotive sector. One is electrification, the movement to electric platforms for power, and secondly, what I call sensorfication, which according to the dictionary is not a word, but I’m determined to make it one, So please share it!

With sensorfication now, there has become more reliance and interdependence by the car manufacturers, on the success and deployment of optical sensors. So previously, if the backup camera on your car was dirty, it was inconvenient, but it wasn’t mission-critical. The driver could put the car in park, go out and wipe the camera. You’re now getting to points where the vehicle itself is starting to participate, or even take over driving decisions. So the availability and the uptime of those sensors become more and more critical. Now you have this advent of sensor cleaning. It’s a very new field, and there aren’t yet a confirmed set of standards or an agreed methodology amongst the different car manufacturers.

How does your solution work?

We’ve taken it upon ourselves to really understand the nature of the problem, down to the physics level. For example, we look at a wide range of weather conditions and different types of mud. From this, we’ve come to understand is that the ideal sensor cleaning system has to combine three core elements. Firstly, a jet of air, for drying or removing raindrops or dust. Secondly, liquid cleaning, for something with more density, like bird poop or mud, where you use that liquid in combination with air to move heavier contaminants. Thirdly, heat for wintry conditions like snow and ice. There are significant constraints within the context of a moving vehicle in order to bring those three things to bear. For example, how much power you can consume and how much space is available to install and integrate these systems.

Within existing systems for cleaning, the air part is typically provided by a compressor. However, a compressor can’t meet the constraints. Our technology is three millimetres thin and only 96 millimetres in diameter. It only uses between half a Watt to ten Watts of power, and it’s electronically controlled. It generates air without a compressor, pump or fan. So it provides a lot of flexibility in the system. We’ve also taken it a step further. We use the jet of air to provide the liquid spray in a fashion that reduces the amount of liquid being consumed to generate that spray. We also make heated air, so we’re able to melt snow and ice. So, we’re able to provide automotive manufacturers with a sensor cleaning system that reduces the system complexity and improves efficiency, meeting all their constraints and requirements.

Will you manufacture the devices yourselves or licence to OEMs directly?

Originally we were looking at getting very involved in design and development and optimization. But in terms of integration and production, we would do those functions under licence. We’re changing that. We’ve gotten deeper into the electronics, the communication protocols and a lot of the controls.

We realised at the outset that we need to be able to provide actuator cartridges. These are a series of laminate layers that are fused together, like making a sandwich. We recognised that we needed to produce them at low volume, no greater than 10,000 units a year. This is for two purposes. One is sampling for the automotive sector. Automotive product development requires a lot of samples and they have to be done under the right quality conditions. But we also have non-automotive customers for sensor cleaning. So, for example, security camera systems or traffic monitoring systems, where a low volume manufacturing capacity can actually satisfy some of those customers.

We looked at it initially as a great capability for flexibility and also to learn how to scale to high volume. So, it begs the question how do we look at setting up manufacturing partnerships? How do we do that in our licence so that they can make the sandwich for us? Or is there a greater role we can play in terms of production, giving ourselves some more flexibility? The other complication that we look at is that it’s a global industry and a lot of our current customers are in Europe. Where do you make, in the context of where your customers are located? So as a small startup, these are sort of existential questions that we’re really starting to work our way through, which has been a very positive challenge for us.

How will you work with companies who have much longer time scales?

It’s very frustrating because we do want things to move fast. That all being said, this is the first time that our team is going through this process. There’s a lot to learn there. We’re getting into a vehicle programme right now that goes into production at the end of 2024. That seems interminable, but between here and there, there is an enormous amount to do.

Getting qualified to provide a component to a vehicle manufacturer is a strenuous process. So my best suggestion is to look at those processes and look at what those requirements are. Do they move slowly only because they move slowly, or does it seem that they are moving slowly because there’s a lot of work and effort to get things really right? That’s what we’re dealing with. And I think the best suggestion is patience. It’s not what your start-up mindset is, but on the other hand, if you’re delivering to your customer in a long process, what they want when they want it, and you’re learning through that, that’s a recipe for success. You need tight coordination with your customers.

Do you have any tools or techniques you rely on to help you day to day?

I think there are two key things. One is just a good CRM so that you’re really tracking the conversations and the information with your customers. And then internally, I just have a really good to-do list. I write thoughts down and keep track of them and then figure out a good way to share them.

My view of management, my view of growing a startup, is to only put in processes or start to layer in bureaucracy when it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t want to slow people down or burden them unnecessarily. In addition, when you get to a point of wanting some control or process, enrol the people who need to be part of it. If you let them build it, it will be more successful than something that’s dictated. I try not to be overbearing. For me it’s all about asking questions, getting a feel for information, progress and flow and talking to people at the right times to make sure that things are on track.

What are your plans for 2022?

For the company, we’re entering into a critical phase, which is we’re getting much deeper into commercialisation. So establishing partnership and commercial agreements with major players in the automotive sector and getting to be part of vehicle programmes. These are things that will all happen in the next several months.

We’re very excited about how that sets us up for going down the path towards the future. The same with some of the non-automotive things. Those opportunities, while they are smaller, they have fewer constraints so they can move a little faster. So we’re hoping to close on a programme that will go into production, hopefully within about twelve months. We’re also raising our next round of capital to really allow us to grow and expand. We have a lot of interest in the product. We’re putting all those support or foundational pieces into place, including manufacturing, as we’ve discussed, to really build this ship and ultimately we’d like to light it and take off. So it’s going to be very exciting.

What’s the best way for people to find out more about yourself or Actasys?

For Actasys it’s actasysinc.com or info@actasys.com is a great email, and I’m on LinkedIn as Miles Flamenbaum. I’m certainly happy to provide any assistance or help or guidance or suggestions. I’m a big believer in entrepreneurial Karma so I try and give as good as I get.

Starting a new venture and breaking away from what you know is overwhelming, scary, and often, incredibly rewarding. What are some of the secrets to a successful manufacturing start-up that will not quit? What key lessons will help you break into the space with confidence? Ask John LaFleur. He might just have the answer.

Now the CEO of Fleur Consulting, John brings a wealth of inter-disciplinary skills to the worktable. Not only did he lead the development of the very first full-size, full-electric pickup truck, but he also helped his teams touch on effective and sustainable development that ranges from engineering to design, purchasing, and everything in between.

Ready to find out more about the ins and out of starting a new venture with confidence? Join our conversation to discover the power of reaching out, the need to understand what you’re up against, and the potential for life-changing success that can be achieved when you know where and when to start working.

How did you get involved in engineering and manufacturing?

I have a degree in industrial design and mechanical engineering from the University of Cincinnati back in the early 80s. So, I’ve been at this long time. We were trained to do concept development as well as mechanical design. And through my career in both design and plastics engineering and metal fabrication production, I grew in my different roles throughout the years to a point where I was in leadership. I have a lot of experience in both domestic manufacturing and all different processes. And then, importing from all over the world on that element as well. So that’s what kind of got me into leadership roles with different sectors.

What challenges do manufacturering start-ups face in todays market to cope with competition?

I think it’s an opportunity, not necessarily a challenge. These start-up companies want to think out of the box. My background is industrial design, its problem-solving. I have never approached things as here’s the way it’s been done – we’re doing it that way. I’ve always been very open to suggestions from employees, outside help, consultants and so forth. Of course, your legacy companies, giant manufacturing companies are settled in and they move like icebergs. But, new manufacturing start-ups, people that are on the fringe of new technology, have a huge advantage over the big guys.

The negative is not having as much money, You’ve got to raise a lot of money. So that’s something I’ve been involved in for the last ten years. Reaching out to the financial institution, investors, venture capitalists etc. But I think the opportunity for a manufacturer both domestic and abroad is gigantic. The speed is important. A start-up or a small/mid-sized company can really capitalise on that, to compete with the big guys. And you learn from the big guys. You hire from the big guys. You bring them in and they know how not to do things. Listen to them because they’ll give you the straight answer.

What are some of the key lessons to make start-ups more likely to succeed?

Do your research. Understand the market you’re going after, know who the competition is. Do a thorough market study. That is what I found to be the most important thing, You need to know who your competition is and what the greatest and latest technologies are.  In addition to that, you need to reach out. I believe in bringing in an expert from an outside field. I’m actually on a couple of advisory boards for start-up software and high-tech companies. I tell them what hurdles they’re going to face and also help them with fundraising, capital venture opportunities or going public. It helps to have an outside person.

You also want to make sure that you protect your concept idea and your technology IP. Make sure you have all of your ducks in a row when it comes to patents and things like that. And then when you share your technology with outside personnel, make sure that you have an NDA in place with any suppliers or potential customers.

What are your thoughts on handling culture change to tackle growth?

That’s a good question because I dealt with that for the last six years. You had a start-up environment and anybody that was with the big companies, GE or Ford or Toyota, had certain ways of doing things. We got to break them out of that mould. Ask them what worked and what didn’t, what held them up or what progressed them. And they’ll be honest with you. And you got to take that advice and really implement it. You can’t just be freewheeling, you need stability and process. And a lot of the big companies have great processes, they just take too long to do it. And I’m not saying you skirt safety measures or governmental regulations, but you can do things a lot quicker as a manufacturing start-up than a big, traditional legacy OEM.

For example, when we took over the Lordstown Motors factory, there were a lot of guys from GM that stayed there and wanted to work for us. But we had to really vet them because some were so entrenched into the way it was done, and we weren’t going down that route. Others were so delighted. You wouldn’t believe the enthusiasm from people saying, we’re going to do it differently, and you’re going to let me help you put that together. That’s encouraging, it builds camaraderie and teamwork, You need a mix, guys that have been in start-ups and guys that have been in established, big companies. The leadership level must be diverse as well. And then at some point, the sales side is very important. But to begin with, you’ve got to have a good product and good people, Then you can start selling because they believe in the product.

Do you have any kind of tools or techniques that you think can help with this?

There is a graveyard full of the carnage of companies, in the EV space alone, not to mention everywhere else. But you learn from them, you find out, what they did wrong. You do a lot of questionnaires to the customers out there, the potential customers. What didn’t you like about start-ups that you tried? And you bring them into an advisory committee. I put together Duke Energy, UPS, Rider and all different sectors, and had them as an advisory team. And you wouldn’t believe the specifics that were important to them, but not necessarily to us because we were developing.

I’ve also tried true methods of supply chain management techniques and tools, and those are changing. You don’t always have to have the big SAP ERP systems that no small start-up can afford. Most people use their email, and they just track and communicate. It’s just so time-consuming, a burden. There are now lots of software systems and companies out there developing cloud-based supply chain management tools that are very inexpensive and much better than SAP. It works with SAP if you want to go up to the big guys, but the small and medium-sized guys can do it. I’m on an advisory board for a company called Cloud Site, and they’re mainly for supply chain management and import and export, that’s kind of their focus. But what I found was those companies also work with governments, cities, counties and municipalities that are trying to figure out where is their carbon footprint and how are they spending their money.

Those are tools that would not necessarily be in your playbook if you come from big legacy manufacturing. So, keep yourself open to the newest, latest, greatest tools. And I will say this, the younger generation, they are so much smarter and so much more educated in the technical aspect of software and easier ways to do things. You really need to listen to the younger generation when it comes to technology.

What are you working on at the moment?

I retired. I was working 24/7 for about five years, so that put about 20 years on my life! When I got my latest notice from Marriott that I stayed 80 times in a hotel in six months, I thought I need to take a break. So, I do independent consulting, I’m Fleur consulting. I’m also on a couple of advisory boards, and I’m looking at being on a full-time board for a couple of local companies, and

I’m also doing podcast interviews. But I try to stay neutral when it comes to my previous companies. I’m supportive of them, but I try and stay broad in my ideas and thoughts because it could seem like I’m partisan in one way or another. So, I do these paid consulting, hourly calls with the financial institutions out there that want to know where to invest their money. I know all the suppliers and all the OEMs in the business. I also help a lot of recruiters find people for major OEMs because I know of a lot of them, and I’ve hired most of them.

What’s the best way, if people want to ask you any questions, find out a little bit more about you, what’s the best way for people to find you?

I have a personal email. Jlafleur@IX.Netcom.Com. Also, LinkedIn, if they pull up my profile John LeFleure. There is another John LeFleur, he’s about 30 years younger and he’s not in my business. But LinkedIn is a big networking tool that I use, so if somebody reached out to me and they want to talk, I can share my phone number with them over email.

Draw. Inspect. Fail. Repeat. There are few things as frustrating in the engineering and development fields as the usually painful and ever-repetitive process of creating drawings from CAD models. That’s where Vin Kettay and Brian Gullette of Vectra Automation are coming in hot. Instead of spending hours draughting, inspecting, and ultimately redoing designs, they’re simplifying the process with the first robotic process automation platform. Now, that previously painful process becomes faster, more accurate, and less likely to result in mistakes in the actual manufacturing process.

So, why does that matter? With their pioneering system, companies and engineers around the world can do their part to cut down on scrap and ramp up productivity to create and deliver the products that could just change the world.

Want to find out more about the wonders of engineering technology right now? Read on!

How did you find out about robotic process automation and what inspired you to create a business around that?

We started on automating the process of engineering drawing generation, well before the term robotic process automation even became popular. So, we started out at Vector as a design services company back in 2005, supporting tier-one suppliers of major automotive OEMs like GM Ford and Chrysler. In terms of supporting our clients, they would do the engineering of 3D CAD models, and then send it over to our team in India who would create the two-dimensional engineering drawings.

It became pretty obvious that it was a very time consuming, error-prone, chaotic process. So, we just decided there had to be a better way. And the obvious way of making a process better is to introduce software to automate the process. We developed new, very sophisticated algorithms and also leveraged existing algorithms used in other domains and other application areas. Our clients were excited about the ability to turn around engineering drawings in one or two days, as opposed to the three to six weeks that it currently took them.

Do you focus on specific verticals?

Firstly, Vinod’s team were developing RPA configurations for body-in-white assembly tooling, for that particular engineering domain. However, the customers also need to make sure that the output is correctly formatted for the end customer. OEMs have their own design standards that the drawings must adhere to as well.

As a result, Vector came up with a way to create autonomous robotic process automation configurations. You can think of them as individual bots. Each bot is trained to recognise the engineering domain that the CAD modelling is designed for. So, for assembly tooling or product design, recognition of the features in that model are all pre-configured. It then generates the drawings accordingly. It also configures to ensure that the output adheres to the design standard of the end customer.

Do you think improving machine efficiencies is another piece of the puzzle for improving productivity?

Yes, it definitely reduces the launch time and the time to market by a quantum of weeks. In terms of actual manufacturing, it reduces the number of headers transmitted from the design process to the manufacture. It also reduces scrap, rework, and the need to get into expedited shipping or expedited installation at the customer facility. There are a lot of benefits.

One other critical component of productivity enhancement that comes from this type of RPA application, is the designers themselves. The 3D CAD engineers are now spending a small fraction of the time that they used to spend inspecting drawings manually, or making sure that the quality control has been adhered to appropriately. Now, the whole engineering team have a significant amount of time to allocate to better design and to do the work that they loved in the first place.

How did you come up with your software ideas?

They were driven by need. When we got into business in 2005, we were growing like so many other companies in the outsourced design space. At that time, our sole value proposition was to lower cost engineering, because our engineering centre is based out of India. But there’s a lot of back and forth that happens in the conventional buying creation process, in terms of chaos errors as well as human error, so it was a painful process.

Everybody in the world accepted it as status quo because nobody knew how to do anything differently. And that’s when I decided that there had to be a better way. With did a lot of research and development, and found there were certain APIs associated with the CAD platforms, that enabled us to automate joins. We went live several years ago. Then following on, we figured out how to make our software three configurable for any kind of engineering domain.

Our plans are to go into aerospace and defence, but we’re not stopping there. With enough training models for our algorithms to automatically examine and detect, we can easily render architectural drawings and plug into something like Revit. When I say it’s essentially a turnkey solution, it really is. You have your CAD platform and you have your engineering domain. We can set up robots to essentially automate that process end to end.

At what point does it make sense to do robotic process automation?

Eventually, I think it makes sense for almost any engineering design task for its mechanical components and systems. This is a mechanical engineering solution for that design scenario, especially if it’s 2D is a bottleneck.

For complex tooling that has thousands of components, each one has a different view angle. Those are the tedious, simple calculations that we can do algorithmically, and that’s where it really makes sense. Why spend all this time and effort, whether it’s outsourced or not, when the amount of work is the real question.

Our plastics components manufacturer get design changes from customers up to the last moment. They have this big 2D bottleneck that they’ve got to finish in the final form. They’d like to be able to test some 2D outputs to go to pre-manufacturing or manufacturing design and have those drawings to work with and redo if there’s a design change at the last minute. So, in that scenario, pressing a button to get the drawings done, error-checking them and releasing the manufacture, is definitely a big game-changer. In that context of time or volume of work, that’s where we come in and can provide significant benefit.

What are your plans for 2022?

I’m most excited to see the amount of engineering capacity that we’re helping to boost with our customers. These are teams that are doing 50,000 to 100,000 hours or more of 2D annually, and we’re building configurations to put all that into automation.

Our existing customers want a configuration built out for SolidWorks and another one built out for Crio. We’ll also have another one built out on AutoCAD for a company that designs plant layouts and plant engineering systems. So our main thrust is that. We’re also going to be bringing on new customers. We spent quite a few years just focusing on a couple of key clients. Now, we’re finally opening up the door to bring on new clients and have quite a few coming on board as we speak. We’re going to be working directly with automotive OEMs and have them introduce Auto 2D, which is our product to their suppliers. That’s the best way for an OEM to gain the benefits.

What’s the best way to get in touch with you or to find out more?

You can use the email vkettay@vectraglobal.com. Or, type in sales@vectraglobal.com and we’ll respond immediately.

Vector are also very open to running full demonstrations of the software using CAD files from customers, provided that it is closely proximal to the configurations we’ve already created. We can typically take an example file and show a potential prospect what it would look like to have that fully automated, and what the required steps are to complete the configuration. It’s very powerful software, that we can set up in a day or so.