Why Robots Are the New Blue-Collar Superpower

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;15;10
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;00;15;10 – 00;00;28;15
Speaker 2
Welcome, everyone to Blue Collar Startup, the podcast where hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the front lines of life in the business of the trades. I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media.

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Speaker 3
And I’m your host, Derek Foster Daigle, cleaning systems. What’s going on?

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Speaker 2
Like, you know, just another day in and in business land, Derek. It’s one of those, one of those weeks, man. Or maybe it’s been one of those months. I’m not even sure, but, you know, we’re, we’re moving and grooving and working, work until midnight, 1:00 every night and back up at five. So it’s, you know, good times.

00;00;53;20 – 00;00;56;02
Speaker 2
Fun had by all. How about, you.

00;00;56;04 – 00;01;17;14
Speaker 3
Know, good, spent the first part of the week, actually, in Las Vegas, actually, with our guests, today. So we were at the, the ISS show, the international, Sanitary Supply Association, which kind of oversees the cleaning industry and suppliers, vendors. So, they do a huge show out there every year. Is my first time going in 15 years.

00;01;17;14 – 00;01;30;28
Speaker 3
So between the time change and taking the redeye flight, Tuesday night, yesterday was a rough day. Very, you know, I got through it, but, it’s good to be well-rested and back at it. So.

00;01;31;01 – 00;01;40;00
Speaker 2
Like, I was we we were emailing back and forth and texting back and forth late Tuesday night, I think while you were. Were you on the plane? Well, while we are communicating.

00;01;40;02 – 00;01;49;27
Speaker 3
Yeah, I was at the airport, probably waiting for, waiting for the plane. Yeah, but knock on wood, nothing got canceled. Everything worked out. So, we’re back and getting caught up.

00;01;49;29 – 00;02;17;29
Speaker 2
Back at it. All right, now let’s get to work here. We’ll, you know, real quick, let’s give a shout out to our sponsors. You know, again, these people are amazing. And the the support they provide us, allowing us to not only help, produce the show, but also these folks, you know, a good percentage of all the money that they, give to us, we end up giving back to kids in the trades, tools and tuition with Boces, Hudson Valley Community College.

00;02;17;29 – 00;02;38;16
Speaker 2
So real quick, real thank you. And shout out to, people these and the team over there. Nick. Thank you. Martin. Electric MLB construction. Pinocchio construction. Michaels group, Catamount consulting. Big shout out to Scott and Stacy. Appreciate all the help and support that they give. And of course, Derek and I wouldn’t be anywhere without our team.

00;02;38;16 – 00;03;01;12
Speaker 2
So shout out to Derek’s team over at Diego Cleaning and of course, our team over at Five Towers Media. So I’m excited about today’s guest. You know, I know you are too, Derek, because it’s, pretty close to home for some of the things that you’re doing over at Diego cleaning. Bob, I don’t want to, I, I, you know, I have this thing with messing everybody’s names up, even when they seem simple.

00;03;01;12 – 00;03;08;10
Speaker 2
So, you know, if you wouldn’t mind introducing yourself, Bob, who you are and your company and what you guys are doing over there.

00;03;08;12 – 00;04;04;17
Speaker 1
Sure. Thanks, Mike. Thanks. Thanks. Derek. My name is Bob caldera. With a company called Clear Focus Robotics. We’re headquartered here in Southern California. And, we’ve got, resellers and offices, around the United States. What we’re focused on is real work robotics for front of house applications across a couple of different vertical markets, like health care, education, retail, hospitality, and I think other retail, maybe, perhaps, subcategories like C stores and quick serve and, airports and commercial buildings and we, we look for the right applications for, these these I call front of House robotics, that help drive up, work flow.

00;04;04;24 – 00;04;19;07
Speaker 1
If, efficiencies and, workforce effectiveness, delivering ROI within the first year and, you know, real work, autonomous mobile robotics is our game. And and that’s what we’re promoting.

00;04;19;09 – 00;04;40;04
Speaker 2
Amazing. And you’re in Southern California, which also sounds amazing because if you’re watching us on YouTube or Rumble right now, you can see I got my I got my, my jersey in winter truck on here. I’m in, flannel because it’s freezing where I am. And, our heating system is, is having some troubles right now. So it’s it’s a little chilly in this house, but,

00;04;40;07 – 00;04;56;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s Southern California. We never talk about the weather. You know, we don’t we don’t want to bring the the, the enthusiasm of any, any call down, and, because. Yeah, the weather at 72 and sunny run around, you know, year round.

00;04;56;29 – 00;05;10;11
Speaker 2
That sounds amazing. That sounds. I will say it did warm up here in, northeastern New York. I think we’re at, like 48 degrees, 46 degrees right now. So it was certainly colder and wetter earlier. So we’ll we’ll take it I guess, but.

00;05;10;11 – 00;05;23;27
Speaker 1
Well, and at 32nd Flug, I, I, I was born and raised in, in Brooklyn and raised in Long Island and, I’m in California 30 years. But, I do appreciate, the weather you guys, experience. Yeah.

00;05;23;27 – 00;05;24;15
Speaker 2
You remember.

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Speaker 1
It? And and the Four Seasons, too. I mean, that’s probably the best part. And that’s one of the things I do miss, being out here in California is that are the four seasons.

00;05;32;10 – 00;05;54;12
Speaker 2
The changing seasons? Yeah. So I know, you know, for our listeners real quick, I know we’re talking robotics, but I promise there is a blue collar tie in with, with what we’re doing and a tie in with the trades, you know, a big one, for that matter. And, and, you know, we can even use Derek in some of the things that he’s doing over at his place as, as the example for that, the case study for that.

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Speaker 2
So, but maybe you can, you know, before we get into some of the other questions, maybe just kind of touch on, on the work that you’re doing specifically with the trades and kind of how you’re supporting them with some of the robotics things that you have going on.

00;06;05;23 – 00;06;41;24
Speaker 1
So I again, like, I, like I said a little bit earlier, if I wish to focus robotics, real work, autonomous robotics, into the workplace, I’d say that, you know, look, there’s kind of back of house and front of house robotics that, that, you know, are prevalent in, in any environment today, whether it be commercial or industrial, retail, education or whatever.

00;06;41;27 – 00;07;08;26
Speaker 1
The constant challenge that, whether it be white collar senior management, sea level management or blue collar day to day getting tasks done, meeting Sla’s, the constant is workflow efficiencies. And you’re always challenged with,

00;07;08;29 – 00;07;48;07
Speaker 1
You know, unplanned, changes in either workforce shortages or situations that, arise where you don’t have the right play, the right person on the job or, or in the right environment, or somebody is pulled away to go do something else. You know, it’s all, kind of task driven and, I’d say, test driven. But moreover, priority driven, robotics takes that kind of pain and the uncertainty away from those unplanned tasks.

00;07;48;11 – 00;08;43;11
Speaker 1
Right. In other words, I think that if you look at floor care, just as a common example, 100 yard or a 200 yard hallway, that’s, predictable yet mundane, repetitive task that has to be supported, maintain every day in some environments, hospitals and and education and all that. If I can take that task and, you know, automate it with robotics that allows blue collar workers on, on the job on a, on, you know, on the ground workers every day to streamline kind of their workflow and reprioritize their tasks, get their jobs done more efficiently.

00;08;43;14 – 00;09;19;01
Speaker 1
Because so, low risk, highly predictable, mundane task is taken over by a robot. That’s where I think it, where robots cross over and they transcend from kind of back of house to front of house, and then and it and it addresses all of the care concerns, either white collar or blue collar don’t matter. I think that workflow efficiency and workforce effectiveness crosses over, or, you know, all roles and responsibilities in, in all environments.

00;09;19;04 – 00;09;25;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I know we, you know, we had, Terry Hubbard from Peak Environmental on time spent a few months ago now handy.

00;09;25;23 – 00;09;27;21
Speaker 3
Yeah. And you know.

00;09;27;24 – 00;09;37;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. And, you know, he’s, he’s integrated what we affectionately are calling the robots, where it’s the the units that are doing the mowing for his team.

00;09;37;29 – 00;09;38;20
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00;09;38;27 – 00;10;01;23
Speaker 2
And, you know, and and what we well, he was saying, like, listen, he’s like, integrating these robots into our workflow allowed my other team members to be able to focus on higher level detail were card scaping, whatever it’s going to be. And, they didn’t have to worry about doing the mow and go. They got the robot to do that, and they can focus on the higher detail work, or like in Derrick scenario.

00;10;01;23 – 00;10;29;06
Speaker 2
And we can touch on that, you know, which which I’m now effectively calling the the mop bot. So we got more robots and we got mop bots. I’m sure they do more than just, you know, clean, you know, mop, but, it, it’s, you know, again, is really of to your point, right. Taking some of those tasks that are mundane not not really a lot of job satisfaction and doing some of that stuff and allowing team members to be able to do other things as well, not just increasing.

00;10;29;12 – 00;10;30;09
Speaker 2
Go ahead.

00;10;30;11 – 00;11;15;05
Speaker 1
So this is three things that those tasks could and we’ll talk about this, you know, as we go along here, those tasks could be dangerous. Those tasks could land or end up in a workman’s comp case and then nobody wins. Right. So the predictability challenge is what robotics is about. Like, for instance, and I didn’t think about this until you just said it in lawn care, if you have two parameters, two, two moving, two moving targets, one is customer satisfaction.

00;11;15;07 – 00;11;33;27
Speaker 1
And what they do when they’re not satisfied, when they’re disappointed with the work, you know, human nature, human nature is this if you have an on happy experience, you will tell.

00;11;33;29 – 00;12;04;23
Speaker 1
A 17 people. That’s human. Human nature, 17 people. If you had a pleasurable experience, you tell nine people. So, so, you know, firms that, do commercial landscape or residential landscape, if in fact, the customer is not happy and their party is on Saturday and the landscaper comes on Friday, and this particular tree’s not trimmed properly and doesn’t meet their expectation, and they’re not home.

00;12;04;28 – 00;12;33;08
Speaker 1
And the landscaper comes and goes and the landscaper says, hey, I spent my 30 or 45 minutes that day, or did that property. What is better than maybe having an, automated solution for the lawn? And then that 30 or 45 minutes is spent on, you know, the meticulous care for certain trees and certain things. And that client comes home ready for this party.

00;12;33;08 – 00;13;19;00
Speaker 1
And they look at that tree and they say, wow, I that tree’s never looked as good as it does today. The reverse of that is they go to Yelp, and Yelp is not anybody’s friend. And and so I say that all the time and everybody laughs just like you do. It’s a natural reaction because in health care there are marketing departments responsible for, you know, the marketing and the proliferation of goodwill and branding around a hospital, you know, hospital organization in one hospital here in California, out of seven folks in the marketing department, two are dedicated to Yelp inbound.

00;13;19;03 – 00;13;44;19
Speaker 1
And the SLA around that is, they’ve got to respond to a Yelp complaint within one hour. And so so that marketing person has to reach out to the doctor, reach out to the nurse, look at the records, look at the complaint, formulate a response, articulate that response in a favorable way, be factual and send it along in one hour.

00;13;44;21 – 00;14;17;27
Speaker 1
So Yelp is never anybody’s friend when it comes to customer responses, customer satisfaction. And I take that from a hospital environment and patient care to residential or commercial, you know, property management and autonomous, you know, mobile, you know, lawn mower, put it in place, have your folks have the team focus on the more articulate, intricate detail, and you win that customer over every single time.

00;14;18;00 – 00;14;19;26
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;14;19;28 – 00;14;41;14
Speaker 3
You know, if I can I just want to add to that to Mike. So, you know, on our end, you know, from the customer service standpoint, you know, and applying that to a scope of work that we typically, you know, agree upon to meet a client’s needs, we’re now able to take the scope of work and handle a task like a detailed vacuum that might be done twice a week.

00;14;41;16 – 00;15;18;17
Speaker 3
And now without any additional, you know, labor costs or anything else going into that, you can now you can set that to five times a week with, you know, zero additional burden on your end. So you increase that customer experience. You know, and, Bob, one thing that I wanted to ask you about, I know you mentioned, you know, the four cleaning robots and a revisitation faction, but what are some of the other types of robots that are out there that are applicable to, you know, the trades, blue collar industries that could help reduce that, that labor cost and increase efficiency and customer satisfaction.

00;15;18;19 – 00;15;49;14
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I so I look at robotics kind of in two ways. I look at manufacturing robots, you know, that are the cobots and robots that do manufacturing. And that’s not what we’re talking about today. What we’re talking about today is really service robots and kind of service robots. I then subcategories as back of house and front of house and some transition or crossover.

00;15;49;16 – 00;16;31;12
Speaker 1
Categorically service robots. Provide either, you know, in our case here, a clear focus, room disinfection, floor care, secure delivery and transportation, and transport covers, actually a couple of different subcategories within itself. Heavy lift transport, and hazardous material transport. In terms of secure delivery, we’re delivering in a more benign way.

00;16;31;12 – 00;17;36;03
Speaker 1
We’re delivering gifts and services to guests in hospitality, but we’re also delivering, prescription medications to nursing stations or right to patient rooms. Again, secure delivery versus kind of transport. And, and so maybe one of the bigger, more integral applications. And I would if you can if we agree that by definition, a nurse is considered blue collar or nursing staff or or technicians within a hospital is consider blue collar if you guys will follow me on that, then I would absolutely say front of house autonomous mobile robotic technology is lined up perfectly with blue collar task management.

00;17;36;06 – 00;18;15;19
Speaker 1
And that is this. In a typical hospital, in one week, the transportation of blood samples from the emergency room to the lab. Somebody walks 75 miles a week that run 75 miles a week. And if I can do that with a autonomous mobile robot that has elevator interface, secure door interface, and it’s a secure delivery. In other words, I, I badge my way, open the door, put the blood sample in it.

00;18;15;19 – 00;18;42;24
Speaker 1
Now knows that, this person, this nurse, this tech, put the blood sample in at 12:00. The door closes. The only way that doors opening is by the technician in the lab, 100 yards away, down a hallway and around the bend, maybe on a second floor. And it’s open. That’s secure. That’s by definition, secure delivery. By definition, that’s blue collar work.

00;18;42;27 – 00;19;22;05
Speaker 1
And by definition, that’s automating a low risk, highly important, secure delivery of 75 miles a week. Now, you could argue that, well, you know, that might be not that secure. Well, I will tell you that it absolutely is secure. But more over than that. It’s extremely efficient and rewarding because now now the team can focus on other things that are patient related.

00;19;22;07 – 00;19;45;20
Speaker 1
So, you know, that’s just that’s just, you know, a real life example, you know, in front of House, applications around autonomous mobile robot, robotic technology. And again, there are others, and we’ll talk about that as we go along here. But, that is a real life example. And I think that’s how it taught to me how it ties to blue collar.

00;19;45;26 – 00;20;03;13
Speaker 1
If you consider nurses and techs, blue collar in hospitals, they’re certainly not, you know, they’re certainly not administration. They’re certainly customer facing or patient facing. And I consider them blue collar all the way.

00;20;03;15 – 00;20;10;01
Speaker 2
Absolutely. What? You know, I’m curious. It’s.

00;20;10;03 – 00;20;18;01
Speaker 2
Well, you know, actually, to back up a little bit, but how did you get into all of this?

00;20;18;03 – 00;20;50;05
Speaker 1
I’ve been in the high tech, electronics industry for about 40 years, and, the last thing I was doing, the company for before I co-founded Clear Focus, I was building, I was building ATMs for a large, banking, ATM manufacturer, and we were their contract manufacturer, and it was not as rewarding as it sounds.

00;20;50;07 – 00;21;22;26
Speaker 1
You know, when you contract manufacture it, it’s not your product and when and and so there’s a huge disconnect between satisfaction product and, and and service satisfaction, when the is not necessarily yours and your brand, when you’re a hired gun to build product. So as I was getting, you know, older in the electronics business, that was where to go.

00;21;22;27 – 00;21;32;21
Speaker 1
That was, you know, go to contract manufacturing. That’s where the big businesses. But it’s by far as rewarding as.

00;21;32;23 – 00;22;11;18
Speaker 1
You know, real important stuff like saving lives with UVC disinfection robots or creating real efficiencies in workflow. With the example I just gave you with a, well, you know, with secure delivery robotics, there’s a lot of good, noble work to be done in health care, in education, in mainstream commercial applications. And so for the next five years, next six years, that’s my goal is, is to do important things.

00;22;11;18 – 00;22;27;01
Speaker 1
But my background and my pedigree is all around, embedded computing technology, display technology. And, and it applies to robotics today, every single day. It applies.

00;22;27;03 – 00;22;43;06
Speaker 2
What? You know, obviously, a lot of this is, newer technology. You’re on the front side of this. What do you see as some of the obstacles or challenges with, the adoption of some of these robotic technologies, whether it’s in the trades or really any other industry?

00;22;43;08 – 00;23;16;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I, I see it’s all subliminal. All of the barriers of entry are all subliminal. And that is, I’ve got union labor. How will I address that? I’ve got staff that I protect. I don’t want to lose them. We’ve had robots in house from five years ago, and they’re sitting collecting dust in a closet. Senior management doesn’t get it.

00;23;16;05 – 00;24;22;20
Speaker 1
They don’t understand it. How do I manage it? How do I create KPIs? And how do I integrate into my workflow? Like superficial barriers of entry? I deal with them every single day, and I and I battle them and I address them articulately and professionally and respectfully on in every conversation. So, I, I just think that education is the key and I will tell you that a perfect example is, you know, when you present whether you do a demo or a pilot or, POC in any environment and you’re addressing middle management, director level management, their biggest challenge is selling up to C-level management.

00;24;22;22 – 00;25;06;08
Speaker 1
The the need and the ability to articulate how to integrate robotics into their workflow. And so education up and education down is critical to the adoption of robotics in any environment. I don’t care where it’s all about battling those those common, you know, concerns around. I don’t know if it’s about change, but this is radical change, right? This is you know, I always think about this as revolutionary technology in an evolutionary world.

00;25;06;10 – 00;25;16;11
Speaker 1
And that and bridging that gap is what Derek and I and, you know, my other partners do every single day is bridge that gap, that knowledge gap.

00;25;16;14 – 00;25;38;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s interesting cause as your as you’re talking about it, that was one of the questions that popped in my mind was when does someone realize, like, hey, we should look at robotics for a part of this workflow that we have to see if there’s an opportunity there, right? Because it’s like most people don’t know all the different robotics products that are on the market, you know, like just to name a few.

00;25;38;18 – 00;25;56;29
Speaker 2
I, you know, we talked about the robots, the mop bots. You know, I know we have a client that has, a robotic welder. So they’re doing some robotic welding in house, and I, you know, looking at your website, you’ve got tons of robotic products on the website. So it’s it’s I, you know, it’s something that’s not talked about a lot.

00;25;56;29 – 00;26;10;00
Speaker 2
And I, you know, to your point, education is got to be a huge piece of this. But like, how do you know like, hey, this is I’m thinking about this workflow and thinking about what we do. And I’m wondering if robotics can jump in here. What does that look like?

00;26;10;03 – 00;26;17;00
Speaker 1
So,

00;26;17;02 – 00;26;18;05
Speaker 1
I lost my train of thought.

00;26;18;11 – 00;26;19;10
Speaker 2
That’s okay.

00;26;19;12 – 00;26;20;06
Speaker 1
Okay, so I.

00;26;20;06 – 00;26;21;09
Speaker 2
Do that all the time. So.

00;26;21;10 – 00;26;38;06
Speaker 1
Okay. So, because I, I was moving to I was, I was moving way too fast for the question. Let’s ask strike this. Ask the question again. I have the answer. But I wanted to, but I. I just completely lost my train of thought. No.

00;26;38;06 – 00;26;58;02
Speaker 2
That’s okay. Yeah. It’s, I guess I talked a lot there, too, but the main objective or the main point of the question is this. If how do I know that robotics may be helpful or an answer to a problem I have in a workflow, like how do I know that I should insert a robot here?

00;26;58;05 – 00;27;35;25
Speaker 1
Okay, so I said that’s the that’s the that’s the $64,000 question. Yeah. And and so and maybe that’s the, the hinge to the education part. They don’t know that there’s a robot that will solve that problem that they’re not they’re unaware. So human nature is I’m going to I’ve got a problem. I’ve got three people short. Everybody’s on overtime.

00;27;35;28 – 00;28;06;18
Speaker 1
People is stressed out. This person just left on leave. They’ve got they called in sick. They can’t make it. They’re not going to come to work. They just quit. The attrition rate is unbelievable at the blue collar level. At the task level, in any environment, health care, education doesn’t matter. In in education, there’s an average of 11 staff RECs open in any school at any time.

00;28;06;25 – 00;28;45;00
Speaker 1
They can’t even higher folks. So they’ve got systemic problems in workflow and they don’t have the right staff, the wrong staff, not enough staff, not a willing staff. And they don’t look at robotics as a solution until it’s forced upon them, or until they sit in it and jump in on this podcast or these types of environments where they’re open minded or they get lucky and somebody says, hey, did you look at this robot to help you out?

00;28;45;02 – 00;29;27;26
Speaker 1
It’s human nature to solve your own problems with the known assets, the known entities, your own knowledge, you know, your own, base knowledge. Robots. You know, when people think about robots, they think of two things. They think of, like when you see robotics in factory automation, the other robot robotics that people think about are the novelty robots with the ears and the smiley face and the whiskers, you know, the cat like robots that are in lobbies and, you know, supporting children in Children’s Hospital, things like that.

00;29;27;28 – 00;30;25;21
Speaker 1
The robots that we’re talking about, the real work robots are somewhere in between the novelty robot and that kind of automation, that production automation, robotics, that’s where and that’s a huge field. And it solves lots of different problems in that huge field, front of house or back of house or some transition thereof, a zillion applications, another. And just here’s one, or there might be not might be there is always a worker that is perhaps not the right worker at the right physical stature to push the oversize wet linen cart from one end of the hospital to the other.

00;30;25;23 – 00;31;13;05
Speaker 1
But that person can’t be pushed off that task because he or she’s been doing it for 35 years, around 6065 years old and that is a workman’s comp case away from $1 million settlement. And when I when I create that scenario, I’m not even finishing my sentence. And the person I’m talking to agrees and says, I’ve got two of those cases right now so they don’t think about robotics to solve those kinds of problems until we show up and say, how about putting that cart on robotic wheels?

00;31;13;08 – 00;31;41;12
Speaker 1
Well, that’d be great, but what’s the cost? What’s the cost? If you don’t like, I’ll tell you the cost, right? Today is $4 an hour. That’s the cost of ownership for making your car robotic. What’s the cost? If that person, that worker files a workman’s court case for $1 million, there is no comparison. So, it’s all education.

00;31;41;18 – 00;32;12;02
Speaker 1
I will tell you, Mike, it’s all education around introducing robotics into a workflow. And when they look at it and they think about it, and your three bullets in on slide two, they got it. Now. Now it’s a matter of how do I deal with the staff I’ve got showing up, implementation who’s going to be the champion.

00;32;12;02 – 00;32;45;04
Speaker 1
All of those things that we battle those and we address them articulately all the time. But I tell that, I tell folks every day, don’t let your CEO tell your CEO to go tell you to go automate that 75 mile a week excursion from the, you know, the emergency room to the test lab. Don’t get don’t wait for that email to come from your CEO.

00;32;45;06 – 00;33;04;29
Speaker 1
Do it yourself. If you get a call from a robotics company, take the meeting. Take the meeting and learn about how robotics can help you drive efficiency in your, in your workflow. And, and they all know it. And they go, yeah, I, I’ve, I’ve got to start doing that.

00;33;05;01 – 00;33;32;21
Speaker 3
So Bob, quick question for, for you because I know, you know that, you know, we’ve worked with with you guys for a while now, and there was a lot of homework that was done already, because I had looked at this years ago and, and some different options that were out there. But, you know, similar to probably some of the folks that you’re describing, a little bit hesitant to pull the trigger, due to a number of factors.

00;33;32;21 – 00;33;59;16
Speaker 3
But what do you guys do, from your standpoint to, I guess, figure out or look at what qualities do you look for in a quality robot? Number one. So if anybody is, whether they’re looking at, you know, you guys for a product or somebody else, what are the things that they should be looking for to know that they’re buying a quality product and they’re getting something for their money.

00;33;59;16 – 00;34;02;01
Speaker 3
That’s a huge value.

00;34;02;03 – 00;34;42;16
Speaker 1
So it’s a good question. And and I think that it it can be as simple as, just reading the specs around, you know, battery life, you know, a battery that, you know, is kind of a 2000 cycle battery and 2000 cycles is, you know, typical five, three and a half to five and a half year battery, depending on how many times you charge it, you know, in a 24 hour period over every single day, if that’s if that’s the, you know, the use case.

00;34;42;19 – 00;35;26;25
Speaker 1
But maybe more articulate. Is the user interface, you know, in back of house, in the manufacturing environment, the user interface, it can be what it is because it’s back of house, it’s set up time and you hit go. And it just could chunks out every single day the same thing. But we find that the more simple and intuitive the user interface is, that means that that company put much more time and effort into making that product very usable.

00;35;26;28 – 00;36;18;15
Speaker 1
And if they put that kind of time in, they’ve put the quality into the interface, they put the quality into the unit and the design itself. Look, every one of these products that you look at or anybody evaluates, they should be looking at a five year commercial grade and TBF or life expectancy. And if the company that you’re researching can’t defend a five year life cycle, maybe not the right product if the product looks a little bit on the industrial side, then maybe it was not really designed and meant for front of house for the common everyday blue collar user.

00;36;18;17 – 00;36;49;15
Speaker 1
And it should not be very difficult to use. It should be, you know, you shouldn’t. I like I’ve said to everybody, even folks like at the VA, down here in San Diego, they say, hey, is this I can it control product because we don’t like working with it. And I go, no, no, no, if you could program your, you know, you if you can download an app on your phone, you could operate this robot around the clock.

00;36;49;15 – 00;37;22;26
Speaker 1
And if the user interface is more difficult than downloading an app, then it’s probably not built right for the application. So. So I think that design comes from usability and also product. You know, your durability. So battery, commercial grade, those kinds of things. Look for those kinds of things. If you’re looking for, you know quality reliable product.

00;37;22;28 – 00;37;47;16
Speaker 2
I got one more question for you, Bob, before we jump over to the, the Members Only portal here on Patreon. You know, obviously it seems like everything’s moving really fast these days, right? You know, I technology, you know, we talk about it a lot in the marketing industry. We basically have to change the way we do business every other week because everything is changing so quickly in new, new technologies.

00;37;47;16 – 00;38;05;25
Speaker 2
And you had said earlier about how, you know, someone could have bought a robot for some, some use case five years ago, and it’s just sitting in the back room collecting dust. Right. And I’m sure the technology in the last five years has changed greatly compared to what it was when they bought that that old dusty robot, right.

00;38;05;27 – 00;38;27;11
Speaker 2
What do you see moving forward? Like what kind of trends or what kind of use cases are going to open up? I know, you know, we talk about in the trades, the trades in and of itself are probably going to be the last frontier. Hard for a robot to swing. Swing a hammer, hard for a robot. You know, do a lot of the things that people still do, but the technology’s changing all the time.

00;38;27;11 – 00;38;32;07
Speaker 2
So what do you think the next five years looks like in the robotics industry?

00;38;32;09 – 00;39;14;03
Speaker 1
Well, I think I not so much about robotics. I think it’s about I mean, I think it’s it’s about AI and the integration of AI into robotics that the one plus one equals three. But it’s never going to I don’t know if it’s ever going to swing a hammer. However, I think that, you know, in the trades as an example, if, if, robotics helps deliver stage products onto the, onto the floor or, you know, on that lot where that building’s being built or the house being built or whatever.

00;39;14;05 – 00;39;45;08
Speaker 1
That’s that’s, I think, robotic augmentation into workflow. And I don’t know if it’s ever going to replace that. The trades. But I think that it’s a blend of the intelligence of robots through AI, the predictive, management of, you know, workflow, and then the robot actually getting it done. Boy oh boy, I don’t know.

00;39;45;11 – 00;40;30;18
Speaker 1
I don’t know how far robots will kind of, you know, take jobs away. I think that it fills gaps. It will always fill gaps. And the more creative the application, the more creative the robotic solutions will, will be. But in terms of service, robots, think of just service, as an aggregator. I think that it, you know, look, I mean, you can’t go to a McDonald’s without having to, you know, order your, you know, your food on a menu board.

00;40;30;21 – 00;40;57;28
Speaker 1
I actually was in the middle of that action years ago, and I was really skeptical. I didn’t think that building these, you know, POS devices for fast food was ever going to catch on. That was five and eight, ten years ago, and now it’s in every McDonald’s now, you know, outdoor menu boards. Same thing. Right? It adds to the service and the customer experience.

00;40;58;01 – 00;41;42;26
Speaker 1
And that adds to, repeat business. So it’s all really about not about taking jobs away. It’s about increasing customer satisfaction. It’s better outputs not not so much replacing bodies. It’s about a better experience at the source. You know, the guest, the student, the patient, the customer. That’s the game here. That’s what robotics to me is about. So anytime you, you know, can improve that outcome, I think, robotics will be, you know, in the mix.

00;41;42;28 – 00;42;03;10
Speaker 2
Awesome. Before we jump over to the, member’s only portal here, we’re going to get into talking with Bob and Derek a little bit about Derek’s integration with, with what I call the mop bots, because I think I’m smart and funny sometimes and little clever. So we’re gonna talk about that integration and what that looks like and some of the things that it’s done for Derek on a business level and for his customers on the service level.

00;42;03;12 – 00;42;13;02
Speaker 2
We’ll get into that stuff. Before we do that, Bob, if people are interested in learning more about how they can integrate robotics into their workflows, where do they find you guys at?

00;42;13;04 – 00;42;41;16
Speaker 1
Well, they could find us at, Clear Focus robotics.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find Clear Focus Robotics on LinkedIn. You can reach out to Derek Foster. At Dago Cleaning Solutions. And there is at their as versed as we are in in explaining robotics in, you know, front of house and, and, and how we can help automate things.

00;42;41;16 – 00;43;00;16
Speaker 1
And again, if it’s a matter of, you know, patient experience, customer experience, client experience, student experience, we, we can we can bridge that gap, and we can explain how robotics will help that, every single day.

00;43;00;19 – 00;43;20;02
Speaker 2
Awesome, awesome, awesome. All right, we’re going to jump on over to Patreon. For those of you don’t know, we’ve got a little Patreon portal over there. It’s five bucks a month, helps pay for production on the show, helps us do some more good work and give, give, give, jump on over here. A bunch of extra highlighters, a bunch of extra reasonable content that we put in there each week.

00;43;20;04 – 00;43;38;04
Speaker 2
And, thanks for listening. Of course, you can find us at Blue Collar Startup Dot. Io is our website. And then, we’re on, I think most of the socials and listening to us on Spotify, Apple Rumble and YouTube. Make sure to hit subscribe, like give us a five star review and, you’ll hear from us next week.

00;43;38;04 – 00;44;06;08
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;44;06;08 – 00;44;18;19
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;44;18;19 – 00;44;33;29
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;48;28;27 – 00;48;44;07
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

00;48;44;13 – 00;49;02;21
Speaker 2
All right, well, let’s let’s, just start with you real quick, then the, as far as I know, you said you researched it and then didn’t go with the solution, and then came back to it, a while afterwards. What was the key indicator for you, Derek, that you needed to, or that you should consider integrating robotics?

00;49;02;23 – 00;49;27;24
Speaker 3
So the short story is one of our customers actually, you know, approached me and said, hey, you got to meet these guys, referring to Bob and his partner Derek. And, you know, I said, okay. And they’re like, they’re doing some great work in the robotics space. And it’s a great moment. So we talked, they came up to Albany and, you know, we went through some of the products that they had told me their story.

00;49;27;24 – 00;49;53;20
Speaker 3
And, Derek had actually traveled the world, interviewing and looking at different robotics products, from all over, Europe, Asia. And he landed on a couple of lines of products that, he felt were superior. So, you know, I one thing led to another and, we actually, tested them ourselves. They left a couple of units with us.

00;49;53;22 – 00;50;40;18
Speaker 3
And, you know, we sure as heck picked it up and got the hang of it. And what we’ve been able to do, has been, pretty incredible. And again, you know, you mentioned before in the show that robotics is, you know, things are moving quickly. They’re moving very, very quickly. And for us, integrating these, you know, repetitive tasks, as Bob alluded to, you know, at the, you know, employee level, you know, a lot of those tasks to eliminate the dangers or, you know, a lot of the harmful, nature where somebody is pushing a vacuum in our case and they trip over the cord or, you know, they’re they have back issues, and

00;50;40;18 – 00;51;12;23
Speaker 3
you know, there’s a there’s a number of things that can come up. So what we did was took an approach. And it’s not, you know, right. Just yet for every single application. But we did have some applications and some of the larger facilities that we, we take care of to introduce these machines. And what we did was we actually created a role within our company for somebody who was formerly in a technician role to be our robotics expert.

00;51;13;01 – 00;51;41;19
Speaker 3
Right. So it actually created another, job description for us to where that person, we spent the time we invested, we educated them. And, you know, that that individual comes with me and does demos. He teaches other folks within the company how to work with the robots. There’s no it’s a myth to say that the robots are going to replace people completely, you know, and Bob talked about that, and we’ve seen it.

00;51;41;19 – 00;52;01;17
Speaker 3
You still need somebody there who is going to monitor the quality if something goes wrong with the machine or, you know, if things aren’t working perfectly and that machine has to be dialed in a little bit more, somebody needs to know how to do that. And then they also needs to see the big picture. So you know what?

00;52;01;19 – 00;52;43;13
Speaker 3
For example, a large facility where you have numerous different types of, spaces, office spaces, conference rooms, bathrooms. Right. We take, you know, the robots and we’re able to integrate those into the larger open areas where it’s repetitive vacuuming, repetitive auto scrubbing of floors, allow that individual that was doing that previously to then actually take a step up, manage the machine, and then be able to handle some of the higher, higher level tasks like high dusting, cleaning, making sure the bathrooms are and we’re able to add additional scope items in for that customer to be able to give them more bang for their buck.

00;52;43;15 – 00;53;06;23
Speaker 3
So you know, on the one side it’s driven our employee satisfaction because now we have a new position that other people can strive to obtain. And it really falls within. There’s no additional management of people. So it’s really not a management role per se. But they can take a step back, view the quality of their work and manage a machine rather than another person.

00;53;06;26 – 00;53;08;00
Speaker 3
Does that make sense?

00;53;08;03 – 00;53;25;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. And one more quick question for you, Deeks. I know you gotta get going. I just, have you found that this is a tool for you on the sales and marketing side to be able to go into organizations and use this tool as a lead in to a conversation with them, where you might not otherwise get that conversation.

00;53;26;00 – 00;53;45;28
Speaker 3
We’ll find out. I it’s too early to tell. What I can tell you is, you know, the the folks that, we have been working with at the customer level for, you know, a period of time that’s really been the focus to where, you know, me as a service provider looking to provide the best service to, you know, our customers.

00;53;46;00 – 00;54;06;22
Speaker 3
I go to them and I say, hey, what do you think about this? And I go through it with them and everybody is curious with everything going on in the world, you know, Elon Musk did his, shareholder address, I think it was last week, and he was dancing with robots, you know, dating. So, like, everybody is really curious.

00;54;06;22 – 00;54;26;24
Speaker 3
It’s no secret that this is coming. So when we’re able to have that conversation with the customer and say, hey, I have your best interests in mind, here’s a way that we can provide better service, give you more bang for your buck, and, you know, improve the quality and drive, potentially drive some of your costs down. It’s what’s in the best interest of the customer.

00;54;26;24 – 00;54;44;10
Speaker 3
So it’s a win for everybody. So really working with the established relationships has been a priority. But I think there’s a certain curiosity to where as we continue to grow and expand what we’re doing in that arena, I think it will naturally just happen.

00;54;44;13 – 00;54;53;06
Speaker 2
Okay. Awesome. The I know you got the motor. So I’ll jump over to Bob. I know he wants to jump in. So, Bob, what are you going to say? I’m sure.

00;54;53;09 – 00;55;07;08
Speaker 1
No. So, look, I mean, Derek, Derek is spot on. You know, the curiosity, Trent transforms into,

00;55;07;11 – 00;55;45;15
Speaker 1
Relevant validation and and now quickly. More quickly than ever before. And and, it doesn’t take much for somebody to understand the value. I gave that one example, you know, of the, you know, transporting blood samples for our emergency room to the test lab. Delivering food carts three times a day from the cafeteria up to the nursing station three times a day full, and then three times a day back.

00;55;45;17 – 00;56;27;23
Speaker 1
And hospitals that have, you know, 14 or 17 nursing stations at an arduous task. And if that could be automated, that means that the quality and food preparation, the quality and delivery can be exponentially improved. And so it’s not really about replacing jobs. It’s really about, better outcomes, better workflow, better cohesiveness, and just just automating the, the, the mundane, repetitive, low risk tasks.

00;56;27;26 – 00;56;41;21
Speaker 1
And and again, the applications are almost endless. We focus on delivery, disinfection, floor care, transportation. But the applications are endless.

00;56;41;24 – 00;57;04;17
Speaker 2
That was going to be that was going to be a question I had for you was, you know, if, well, it’s really kind of a two part question, right? Is one, let’s just say you’re in a conversation with someone and they’re looking for a solution that you guys don’t have. Do you help them source it. And then the other side of the equation is what if there’s a solution that doesn’t exist yet, but someone’s looking so kind of similar, right.

00;57;04;17 – 00;57;30;02
Speaker 2
Like they’re like, hey, I really could use some sort of automation robotic for this piece of my business. Whether that and again, you know, we look at the trades, it’s not just the act of doing the the activity, whether it’s welding or, you know, fabrication or sheet rocking or painting or, you know, putting a roof up. I mean, there’s so many aspects to the side of the business where things can be automated.

00;57;30;02 – 00;57;33;03
Speaker 2
So I guess what does that look like?

00;57;33;05 – 00;58;08;04
Speaker 1
So I think that your research criteria has to be open minded. But to think at the same time, in other words, be prepared for what you are looking to solve, you know, have have that clearly in your mind what challenges you, you know, you face every day. Now, I must say, people that come to work every single day don’t realize they have a problem because they just it’s part of their, you know, their everyday regiment.

00;58;08;07 – 00;58;35;05
Speaker 1
Right? And when they go, well, you know, I’m always, I could only get seven of these done a day based on my environment. Now, the SLA or the goal for senior management or Sheila, maybe ten a day, but the you, you know, human nature is you just conform to your environment. Right. And, you know, I can only get seven done a day.

00;58;35;05 – 00;59;17;06
Speaker 1
So seven becomes the norm. But if I automated part of the process, could I get to ten and could ten change everything? And so be mindful of your challenges, but be mindful of whatever your stretch goals are or whatever. Whatever stretch goal is optimal at the sea level. So make sure that you’re either in line or. And if you’re not and your performance is is become acceptable yet can be improved.

00;59;17;08 – 00;59;45;20
Speaker 1
Those are the parameters to walk into. Your research around robotics. And in this way, you’ll ask the right questions and your expectations will be set properly. Because somebody might say, you know what? My robot doesn’t do that today. And here’s an example. The floor care robots that we have, they have a blue light underneath the, the the carriage and underneath the cowling.

00;59;45;22 – 01;00;11;25
Speaker 1
And the blue light is just, an indicator that it’s in forward motion with no obstructions in the way. It’ll turn. The lighting will turn red if it comes up on a barrier or an obstacle that it needs to get around. So people look at the blue light and they go, hey, by the way, is that blue light, disinfection feature?

01;00;11;27 – 01;00;53;22
Speaker 1
And we go, no, it’s a navigation feature. But great question. And we went back and now we a clear focus. We’re actually integrating UVC disinfection LEDs on the bottom carriage because the the knowledge that we gained from that conversation was, viruses and bacterial matter pathogens end up on surfaces, floor being one of those surfaces. So if you could maintain the floor and disinfect at the same time, boy oh boy, that solves a couple of different challenges that we have.

01;00;53;24 – 01;01;20;27
Speaker 1
I didn’t think about it until we had that conversation. So not not every robot is going to solve every problem. But in by way of conversation and open green light thinking, you get to certain opportunities and you get to solve and entertain certain opportunities that you surely didn’t think about going in, you know, in that in the original conversation.

01;01;21;00 – 01;01;56;28
Speaker 1
So not every robot is is going to solve every problem. But robotics companies, the right ones, the right partners are open minded and willing to listen and adapt and make recommendations or help. To your question earlier, I can’t do that, but let me find you a robotic company, a robotic solution that will and I hope. I hope that robotics companies think like that because the the quicker to adoption the better for everybody.

01;01;57;01 – 01;02;18;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Right. One more question for you and then I’ll, I’ll let you go. So I’m not hogging your day here. You know, I, asked Derek and and it was too soon, he said, for him to really giving the information. So I’m wondering if you can speak to this is, you know, obviously from a, a business standpoint, not just in the trades but all businesses.

01;02;18;05 – 01;02;21;27
Speaker 2
But I know the trades definitely.

01;02;22;00 – 01;02;47;06
Speaker 2
Looking for ways to have a competitive advantage, looking for ways to be able to have offerings that other companies don’t have is super important to folks at Are. Do you can you speak to the marketing and sales message that goes along like for Derek, like he’s integrating robotics into his process. It’s saving money, saving time. It’s it’s doing a lot of good for both him and his clients.

01;02;47;09 – 01;02;55;00
Speaker 2
Do you have other clients that use the fact that they’re using robotics as a way to help message and market and then sell new clients?

01;02;55;02 – 01;03;33;26
Speaker 1
So I think that the, at the end of it all, it’s about efficiencies, effectiveness, call it client outcomes, you know, or patient outcomes or student outcomes. But it’s also about ROI. Yeah. And then I also say that it’s about meeting, you know, normalized KPIs. You know, what are those key performance indicators that I’ve got to meet or what is it what SLA do I need to meet?

01;03;33;29 – 01;04;17;11
Speaker 1
Or can I help you meet or that you can’t ever meet and and that those are the subjective yet constant challenges that everybody sees and faces. And I think that when you can when you can take robotic technology and apply it to those business challenges, I think then you’ve got a winning formula. Whether you’re integrating it like Derek integrates robotics into his workflow and he becomes a more competitive floor care solutions provider for his clients.

01;04;17;11 – 01;05;01;26
Speaker 1
So he can outbid now anybody because his cost of operations is lower than others. So he can quote competitively, still make margin solve problems, utilizing, automation in one way or another. I think that hospitals in in and for example, if they can turn rooms over faster and have patients not sitting in emergency rooms waiting for a room and a can get turned over safely and faster using automation, then they become the hospital of choice.

01;05;01;28 – 01;05;35;08
Speaker 1
And when, in health care, the biggest challenge health care has is battling his hospital acquired infections. And by definition, that’s an infection that you leave the hospital with, that you don’t come into the hospital with. And those are extremely costly to hospitals. They get measured by them. They get penalized as a result of too many HCI cases.

01;05;35;10 – 01;06;09;15
Speaker 1
And those cases are, you know, bad catheters, bad medication, bad surgery procedures, you know, dirty, patient rooms. And if I can help or if robotics can help in, in with those reductions, then hospitals get rated better. Their cost goes down, they get recognized as efficient, safe hospitals to have your surgeries in. That drives up revenue, that drives up patient satisfaction.

01;06;09;17 – 01;06;40;25
Speaker 1
And then it’s a trickle down effect is staff become more and more motivated. The morale is better because the place is cleaner, it’s more efficient, and they’ve got better performance numbers than others. So automation always helps downstream and upstream if you implement it properly. And so that’s how I look at, automation in, in, in business terms.

01;06;40;28 – 01;06;41;24
Speaker 1
Does that make sense.

01;06;41;27 – 01;07;13;22
Speaker 2
That makes perfect sense and makes perfect sense. But I sorry to scratch from either I really appreciate yeah. Jumping on today with us man and spend some time with us. And, it’s been fascinating at the whole robotics industry I think is super, super interesting with how it’s shaping. And, you know, like Derek said, with the Elon dancing with the robots, you know, I, I realize that’s not the kind of robots that you guys are selling, per se, but, fascinating to watch this whole industry really, really progress.

01;07;13;24 – 01;07;35;13
Speaker 1
Well, look, I appreciate the opportunity. I hope it help. I’m available at anytime for, you know, follow up questions. Yeah. And, anecdotal, you know, stories around kind of this proliferation of, you know, automation, call me any time and I’m available, you know, where I can help.

01;07;35;15 – 01;07;52;15
Speaker 2
Appreciate it, appreciate it, and appreciate everybody that’s, joined our Patreon membership as well. Of course. Make sure you shared with a friend, tell them to join so they can get some of these, a little behind the scenes tidbits and extra, extra content and information. So, Bob, thanks so much. Have a great day. And, I’m sure we’ll talk soon.

01;07;52;18 – 01;07;53;10
Speaker 1
Thank you so much.

01;07;53;17 – 01;07;54;09
Speaker 2
Thank you.

01;07;54;09 – 01;08;22;13
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

01;08;22;13 – 01;08;34;24
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

01;08;34;24 – 01;08;50;04
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh, hey.