Satish Shukla-
Hello listeners, welcome to our podcast, RawBotics, All Things RawBotics. I’m your host, Satish Shukla, and today I am thrilled to introduce you to our truly remarkable guest, the biggest robotic enthusiast, and a visionary leader who is at the forefront of the robotics revolution, Mr. Sangeet Kumar, CEO-Addverb.

Sangeet is not just a CEO; he is a pioneer who is shaping the Make in India-Indian narrative with his robotic army. His innovative approach and dedication are taking India’s robots to the world, and today we have the privilege of delving into his incredible journey. So welcome Sangeet, welcome to our show.

Sangeet Kumar –
Thanks Satish, thanks for having me.

Satish Shukla-
So right from your time at Asian Paints, Sangeet, I know you personally as an engineer who is an early adopter of technology, and you have always had this passion and vision of how robotics will evolve and how automation will transform manufacturing.

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes, so after graduation I joined the LPG production facility of GAIL Limited at Baroda. And as a chemical engineer, you really get inspired when you work in a refinery or LPG recovery unit kind of thing. But what I like most there was not about the nitty-gritty of chemical engineering, but the control system, the instrumentation engineer, okay, in chemical engineering you get taught about it. But when you see how things are controlled and the real fine control of processes, you get to set.
When you see these things in action, you really get inspired as an engineer what technology can do, to processes and people. And after gale, I joined Asian paints initially in production role and then I moved to project role. And as a project engineer, you are not a chemical engineer anymore. You are a civil engineer, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, electronics engineer. Unfortunately, at that time Asian paints had taken this decision to eliminate all dirty jobs. And that is when robotics came into picture. And I was very fortunate to work on some of these first projects. And these projects really, really inspired me. I really started loving it. Even failure in those robotic projects, which some of them were failure, the first ones which we did at Asian paints, we learned quickly and made it successful. But those failures taught me a lot. I got attracted towards robotics. And then one after the Asian paints kept on building world’s largest factory. And these factories were not only world’s largest, but they were one of the most automated factories which you will ever see or can imagine anywhere in the world. In fact, we used to have European vendors coming to our factory and they would say, if you just landed their port and maybe fly to this place, no one can say whether it is a factory in India or it is a factory in Europe. So that is the kind of automation we did. And these automations were not for the sake of automation. This automation gave results. They gave productivity, they gave the biggest gain which we got was in reducing the losses. And we justified the investment in automation. and I keep on telling all the people who join our organisation or the young people that today engineering is not about one department. It is about multifunctional engineering. You can be an expert in electrical. But until unless you understand mechanical electronics, you cannot contribute as a good engineer and robotics. Definitely, you cannot because it is a multifunction engineering marvel, I would say. And that is how the journey has been from chemical engineer to a person who likes robotics and who enjoys seeing robots in action.

Satish Shukla–
Fascinating, that’s truly fascinating. So, you talked about productivity gains, you talked about dirty jobs. So, tell me, how does this industrial robot actually look like? So, when I walked into Asian Paints and I heard that there was a robot, I imagined the robot would be like a Terminator and a humanoid. So how does an industrial robot look like? And what are the tasks that it can perform?

Sangeet Kumar –
And like you, I also imagine. Maybe 15 years earlier. So, when we said, okay, one of the job was lifting paint bucket, which was 30 kg pay load. And doing it, these things were done by people eight hours a safe time. It was creating health problems and we recognised it quite early and we said we need to solve it as a company. And we cannot create job, which creates hazards for our people. And that is when we tried the palletisation robot for the first time. And I remember we were told, okay, if there is any robot which can solve this problem, go ahead and explore it. So we went to Germany, Italy, some of the best paint companies, some of the best beverage companies. And we saw robots doing wonderful. And these robots were articulated robots, as we know today. When you talk about industrial robots, and most of the research organisation or most of the market analysis organisation, whenever they quote some number of robots which are existing in the world, these are the robots which are quoted. These are six axis, five axis, four axis robots. And these axes are nothing but different joints from where the robot can move and replicate the movement of what humans can do with their shoulders or any of their lives. So, these are the most popular robots. it came into being in 1970. And then companies like Kawasaki, Fanon KPP and Kuka copied it from the market leader. The market leader does not exist today. they never moved from that hydraulic arrangement to the motor and the momentum therefore they do not exist today. But these people copied and then took it to a different level.
Today there are 400,000 of these robots which gets used in industrial application. And out of that maybe 200,000 would be used in China and in India the numbers would be around 5,000 to 8,000 kind of thing. So, when people talk about robots, these are the robots. So, there are, and in articulated you also have SCARA and delta kind of robot. Then there are these robots which have come into being in the last 10, 15 years when people started talking about driving car and the technology of LiDAR sensors and perception as a science came into being. And that is when people developed the first mobile robots. And these robots today, whether an autonomous mobile robot or easy beast, that these robots are more in number in comparison to articulated robot. And today they are categorised in service robots. every year we would be consuming around 1.2 million of these robots.
The third kind of industrial robot which is getting used and you would have heard it mostly in hospitals and these are surgical robots. So, it came into being because of their precise operation. So, there is a Da vinci then there is CMR surgical. These are the kind of robots which are getting used. So, these are the broad categories of robot today which people are using. The other kind of robot which is becoming very popular and currently the consumption would be in the range of 100,000 or so is Cobots, collaborative robots. The articulated robots were always considered as dangerous. If they hit you, it can be fatal. And therefore, it needs to be caged. Whereas the Cobots can work along with human beings. And these Cobots can be a mobile robot or a stationary robot but it can work along with humans and when they touch you, they stop or when they are around you, they reduce the speed. And these are some of the features which makes them collaborative. And therefore, instead of robots, they are known as Cobots.

Satish Shukla –
You’ve seen Transformers?

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes.

Satish Shukla–
So, is it safe to say that Cobots are Autobots?

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes.

Satish Shukla–
And the other robots are deceptive ones.

Sangeet Kumar –
So today whether it is articulated robot or mobile robot or Cobot, they understand the environment. They would have vision system. They also would have perception which is making sense of that vision system. But they would not be fully autonomous and therefore I would not compare them. But yeah, they are on that path to become that autonomous or who can think for themselves.

Satish Shukla-
Very interesting. So, one of the points that you touched was that there is a very meager adoption of robots in India. why do you think that is? Is it because that labor is more affordable in India and robotics is only a developed country phenomenon?

Sangeet Kumar-
I don’t think so. So, if you see the current context, it is any job which is dull, dirty and dangerous, which is three days are the first jobs which are getting replaced by robots. Now dull job, anything which is mundane, you have to do it in a routine fashion. You have to do it day in and day out. These are the jobs. Earlier these were not the jobs which were getting. It was always the dangerous and the dirty job, the dirty job which creates problem. Even in India those jobs are dangerous. So, the definition of dangerous does not change if it is in a developing country. a dangerous job people have adopted robotics. Mostly in automotive sector or mostly that sector where there is lot of welding, there is press job etc. where people have to take heavy items inside a machine or take out heavy items outside the machine. Those are the jobs which have been automated in India as well.
But the dull job I think is not automated to the extent which has been automated in a developed economy. The other thing, which is helping robotics grow in India, it is a very fast growing market. And like the way it happened in mobile phone, wherein people jumped from a certain kind of basic phone to a smartphone with Wi-Fi and the kind of broadband consumption or data consumption is one of the highest in the world. Same thing is also happening in robotics, wherein people of adopting an articulated robot, they are quickly jumping to more advanced robot in the terms of mobile robot or Cobot. and the other thing which is helping robotics grow in India is the scale of operation. The scale when you have 300 to 500 million middle class consuming everything, you know, food, white goods, cars and that consumption itself, that scale of operation and you have few giants serving all these customers, then you need automation and human robots to manage that scale, reliably and accurately. And that is another reason why robotics is becoming successful. There is a onus on companies like us to educate people, not only the Fortune 500 companies or the top companies they need it, but the MSMEs, the mid-sized companies, the small companies, companies who have a turnover of 150 to 200 crore, they need to consider whole world as the market and they have to be competitive, they have to compete with products coming from other countries, whether it is China or Vietnam or Bangladesh or any such country. So, if they have to compete with entrepreneurs of those countries, they have to improve their productivity, reliability, quality and accuracy. And for that to happen, to large extent they need to learn about robotics, they need to do their first experiments in adopting this technology and that is what will make them successful companies which are known internationally and that is the dream.

Satish Shukla-
So, to all the listeners, to all their aspiring entrepreneurs who want to export from India, robotics is the key, you have to learn that’s what Sangeet has to say.

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes, I certainly feel that way and it is not about imbibing this technology for the sake of technology, use robotics and you will be considered as a cool company. These things should impact one of the derivatives, it can be cost, it can be productivity, it can be quality, it can be reliability. One of the deliverables have to change, transform in a very different way and that transformation journey, robotics is just a tool. That transformation journey has to be big conviction and you have to give your company heart out in making these things, when I was a customer, it is never that robotics will be there, and it will solve all the problems. you need to know your processes and systems, you need to know where you want to go, you need to know the technology supplied by the supplier or the vendor, where it can be human robots, it can be any other automation and how you will change your processes and systems to go to that next level. You have to put a lot of effort as an entrepreneur or as an engineer or a shop-floor person and that is how technology will help you. Until and unless you help the technology cannot.

Satish Shukla-
I want to add one question, I will just add because you touched on that. So, Sangeet, that is very interesting. You mentioned about your journey from a user to a creator. How has been your experience? Since you were user of robotics at one point of time and now you make robotics solutions for different customers.

Sangeet Kumar –
Okay, I will answer this question in two ways, I will touch upon two things. One is as a user of technology; you understand the functionality. Of course, you have to understand that functionality and that is why you choose those technologies. Second, you will learn how to maintain and manage this technology and that is when you start getting into the details of the sensors or the controllers, PLCs, PCs etc. The programmes, the software logic etc. To maintain it well so that it keeps on serving you.

So, that is the user part of it which is doing the functionality so that it can help you get the productivity. Second is knowing the system so that you can maintain it well so that it keeps on serving you for next 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. As a creator of this technology, it is about the choices that you make in terms of what components you are going to use, why you are going to use. Finally, it has to be of value to the customer, the customer will pay you if he or she gets that value. Now, that value can be in terms of the functionality which you are offering. The value is also in terms of at what cost you are offering that functionality. Value is also in terms of whether it will be reliable, and it would last for so many years. Because you have been a customer, you go and talk to a customer, he speaks something, and you are really able to understand that and build that thing in the product. But giving the real value in terms of the money or in terms of let us say, timely delivery in terms of what kind of components or partners you will have. The way the saying goes that you are known by the friends that you keep and it is the same in robotics as well. You are known by the parts of the components that you use in your product, which promises reliability and certain kind of quality to the customer. So, that has been the journey. It is just a start. We are seven-year-old company. I think in a journey of a company, seven-year-old is still infancy.
So, we are learning, we will continue to learn and be a better creator by giving functionality which we hear from our customers, which we think is required and also by giving quality of these equipment at a value which is affordable. I certainly believe in the form of any technology which is not affordable cannot be a technology., Until and unless, it is adopted at a mass scale. It is not a technology. You can build anything for that matter. If people cannot use it at a value which they feel adds value to the matter.

Satish Shukla-
Am I hearing it right? Are you talking about democratising robotics?

Sangeet Kumar –
Of course. the choice of going for vertical integration where we make all the motherboards or driver cards etc. was that I would use only that thing which is required in a robotics. I would not use generic thing, which is available in the market, which is costly. There are so many functionalities which does not guess because you were using a generic thing for a robotic application. So, we chose not to do it and try to reduce cost for our end custom.

Satish Shukla-
Wow. So, you mentioned about start. A good start is job half done. I know that you are a learning machine. So, I am sure that your organisation will learn and move very fast. So, there is a running joke among all of us who know you personaly that if we move a globe and put our hand on any random there is a 90% probability that you come to that country. Is that true?

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes, I would have visited more than 50 countries and it is not by choice of course but one thing which I loved and which I continue to love is to see factories in action.

Satish Shukla-
So, you visited all these countries to see factories in those countries? Yes. So, we knew about medical tourism. This is automation tourism.

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes. It is automation tourism. I enjoyed visiting this factory. I would visit more than 1000 factories and more than 1000 warehouses. You name a company in the Fortune 500 and I would have visited that factory or warehouse somewhere in the world. everywhere I have gone it has been a humbling experience. It has been a learning experience. You really start appreciating the ingenuity of mankind or human intelligence in every small thing if you are a good observer.
You will see people have thought through it. You will really appreciate why that has been done. Why that has been done? When you reach to the answer it is so pleasing and so soothing. I love going to factories and see human robots in action. I love going to warehouses. I love seeing physical technology in action. I also love interpreting the logic or the software which is making this physical automation in action, and I will continue to love till I die.

Satish Shukla-
Innovation alert. So, all our listeners out there just like Steve Jobs visited Haridwar for a Neem Karoli Baba. You can also visit countries outside to go from Nirvana and learn in these factories. It is really amazing insight. So, with all your experience of having seen different factories, automation and robots, which is that one robotic application that you have loved the most.

Sangeet Kumar –
So, pointing to one is difficult but I will give you three of my best thing which [Satish Shukla- we keep them flowing]. I have seen them in action. The first one is this Delta Spider robot. It was lifting spoon at 200 picks per minute and while it was lifting it was making it turn from so it was flipping this.

Satish Shukla-
So, all the spoons will be flipping at the rate of 200 spoons per minute.

Sangeet Kumar –
And it was recognising which one needs to be flipped and which one need not be flipped so that it is in the same way, on a conveyor. That was amazing, amazing seeing that in action. The other one which I really enjoyed looking at it was an inverted robot which was moving. The seventh axis was in action wherein it was going to one machine taking some items and going to another machine and delivering it.
And the speed at which it was doing was amazing. So, speed thrills and this speed does not kill you. The third one is something which we saw in videos but when we created for ourselves this was a Cobot on a mobile robot which we did for IIT, Delhi. and that was for a machine tending application wherein the Cobot had to lift from a particular place of particular machine part, and it had to feed into another machine for certain processing. And this whole thing the mobile robot moving and then the Cobot moving on it and trying to recognise the object and then lifting it. but that is not the end of the work. It is mobile robot, Cobot and human being working together in human robot collaboration. So, some actions, some tasks. So, if you have let us say 50 tasks, there would be 30 tasks which gets divided toward Cobot because Cobot is more suitable to do that task and 20 tasks has to be done by human beings because they are made to do that. It requires some critical thinking, it requires creativity, it requires the human hand-eye coordination which still is a big, long way for the robot to replicate. And this both humans robots working together is amazing and that is the future, I think. So, this human robot collaboration is a very upcoming field in robotics, and I think it has to go a long way. It is just 1% of what it can achieve, and I think even in that 1% it is amazing, but it has to go a long way to help humans become more human with the help of human robot collaboration.

When you see it in action, seeing it in video, building it is a great joy and actually seeing it in action is really amazing.
I am sure there would be many many more applications which will inspire us. One of the other applications which I really love is Quadropad, the robot from Boston Dynamics or from MIT Cheetah. Those robots are also amazing when they walk on staircase, all terrain and that speed and someone kicking them and still they lift from after falling down. It is amazing. It is like a real living animal.

Satish Shukla –
I hope these videos are not shown to future robotic generations and then they are told that this is how humans did atrocity.

Sangeet Kumar –
And therefore, robots need to take the revenge and then the writing happens.

Satish Shukla-
I actually went in a trans-visualising all those applications. So, I heard something very interesting there, human robot collaboration. Is that how the future is going to be like?

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes, and I certainly believe that and as I was explaining there will be tasks and these tasks are not something which someone has pre-decided that these tasks will be done by robot, or a co-bot and these tasks will be done by humans. But based on the nature of the task there will be something it can be a distributed control system; it can be a centralised control system which will keep on distributing the tasks to humans robots. It will also what it will do is it will teach. So, there are certain skills which a human would have and which a human possess because of the way God has made him and there are certain skills which human robot collaboration have given it to robots and these robots though they will be learning from each other robot which is there in the world but also from a centralised system or from the context and an environment and they will keep on upgrading the skills both humans robots and based on that upgraded skilled matrix the tasks will get associated and humans robots will work together and this is what industry 4.0 or 5.0 envision where in everything will be customised at a mass scale for you. So, there is a toothpaste which will be customised for you, for Satish, and

Satish Shukla-
I like mint, so I will have a lot of mint toothpastes.

Sangeet Kumar –
You will have mint. You will have on the packet your photograph [wow] and there can be so many things which whatever you can imagine that will be there it will be produced in a factory and humans robots will divide these tasks so that you get that customised product from this factory it is already happening there are factories which are adopting it and in future it will continue to happen more. Why I say the upgradation of skills will happen at both humans robots and we keep on teaching that you need to upgrade your skill for all the engineers but that is true but also it is true for people who work at the shop floor at the warehouse in hospitals, they will upgrade their skill robots will upgrade their skill because of what it is learning from all other robots or a centralised system and then they will keep on dividing the task it will keep on automatically dull dirty dangerous go to one place creativity and content and critical thinking go to one place and that is how human robot collaboration will happen to build products of value to the end customers.

Satish Shukla-
It’s a very inspiring view of factories of the future.

Sangeet Kumar –
I will not say it is a factory of the future, yes for many factories it will be but it is already started happening in one form on the other in certain pockets in an episode of technology there will always be first movers who will take those steps and adopt those technology and fail in doing so and there will always be people who will adopt this technology once it is successful so they will follow you.

Satish Shukla-
That’s a very interesting insight. So, coming to our last section, there are a set of short questions that we have for you we want to know whether it’s a myth or truth there are a lot of myths associated with robotics. Will robots completely replace humans?

Sangeet Kumar –
Never.

Satish Shukla-
So, our jobs are safe.

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes, and in fact any industrial revolution whether it is industry 1.0 2.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 any revolution there have been advent of technologies whether it is power, steam, in different assembly line etc. These have always created more job and there has always been fear whenever it came there was always a fear in the larger masses or there are people who create those fear that these will take away the jobs. It has never happened in the past it will never happen in the future. Technology will create jobs the content and the nature of that job will change but any successful technology will always create job. So, as I said any technology is technology only it is affordable it is similarly this is the other statement which I have thought over it and I believe that any technology which does not create more job it will kill some job but if it does not create more job, it is not a technology and robotics does not fall in that space that I am sure.

Satish Shukla-
That’s comforting. Can robots have emotions?

Sangeet Kumar –
Yes, social robotics is a space which is coming up in a big way and you would have seen Sophia one of the robots having around 40-50 motors expressing certain emotional facial expression and that was very sophisticated technology.
Now there are technologies which are available where in the expression of that emotion there are several robots which are doing it as a part of human robot collaboration. it starts in humanoid thing, but it will happen with a Cobot. it will never be only hard work between humans robot and Cobots working together but it will also be they will understand each other socially. They will have emotions and they will express those emotions to human beings and there are pet robots which are there in Japan which has been because of several years studies these pet robots are comforting to human beings comforting to old people they socialise with them they talk with them and I am sure in future robots will have emotion not as advanced as humans maybe a biased emotion based on who is creating that robot but I do believe that it will have emotions

Satish Shukla-
So next question is on behalf of John Connors Can robots harm humans?

Sangeet Kumar –
Never. The first law of robotics unlike what you see in the movies and so robots harming human beings [Satish Shukla- and then they have a sequel]. I don’t think the first law of robotics and as long as that law is respected is no robots can harm human beings and I believe robot is across the world will be sensitive to this fact. There are certain application in defence where there are countries which are investing heavily in creating such robots which can harm human beings but then it is like a tool like a gun which a human being is using it robot is not taking decision for that then it is that robot is not a robot but it is a tool, it is a complex sophisticated tool which is getting used by certain humans to harm certain other humans.

Satish Shukla-
So last question on behalf of all the singles out there can humans have robot companions?

Sangeet Kumar –
That is not far off and I think there will be humans who enjoy companies of robot more than any other thing.

Satish Shukla-
That was truly fascinating to have a great interaction with you thank you Sangeet.

Sangeet Sir –
Thanks, Satish, thanks for having me here and making me speak some of the things which I really really believe in and some of the things which I don’t usually speak of but thanks thanks for having me. Thank you.

Satish Sir –
So, listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Like and subscribe to continue on this robotic journey with us. Until next time, this is your host Satish Shukla, signing off!

future of work