Pittsburgh, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/16/2011 -- According to Gregory Jones, who recently interviewed the Pittsburgh-based business leader for Smart Business, Scott Friedman and his team at Seegrid Corp., a developer of vision-guided robotic trucks, founded the company on the idea that taking the driver off of a forklift would be safer and save money.
“We actually went out and we talked to about a dozen customers who are responsible for about $200 billion worth of retail spend,” Friedman, shared with Smart Business about the 60-employee company says. “It was tough to get the meetings, but we said, ‘If we were successful technologically and we made such a product that could work like this in your warehouses, would it mean anything to you or would it mean everything to you?’”
Seegrid’s innovations have impressed companies like Toyota and Kion Group, which are part of the $38 billion forklift market.
Smart Business spoke to Friedman about how he is growing his company in a niche market, namely through market innovation. Friedman noted, “We had a very strong and informed vision of what we wanted to achieve. It was on the edges of realistic, so between early customers and knowledgeable technologists, we had a very strong product vision that everybody agreed could be achieved and would be of value. We use a camera system and a bunch of advanced robotic software that we reduce the complexity of deploying a robot to something we call ‘walk through then work.” To make our products make deliveries in a big industrial space, somebody who works at the facility takes the equipment and walks it around and shows it the routes and when its doing that the cameras take a bunch of pictures and it builds a 3-D map of the facility like a video game map, and then afterward, it will repeat those routes that somebody has shown it.”
Robotic industrial vehicles are, according to the insurance companies, ten times as safe as human-operated vehicles. In addition to reducing costs, improving safety is another reason that this industry is becoming increasingly interested in robotics.
About Seegrid
Founded in 2003, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Seegrid Corp. (www.seegrid.com) brings robotic vision-guided technology to the material handling industry. With more than thirty years of innovation and research by the leading robotic scientists, engineers, programmers and logistics practitioners worldwide, Seegrid’s exclusive Robotic Industrial Trucks are revolutionizing the movement of materials in manufacturing and distribution environments. Seegrid’s technology transforms industrial vehicles into un-manned, automated pallet trucks and tow tractors that operate without the need for wire, tape, laser or other costly automated guided vehicle (AGV) guidance systems. Seegrid offers solutions that optimize workflow processes by increasing productivity and reducing costs, creating economic and operational advantages. Scott Friedman, Co-Founder and CEO of Seegrid, started the company with a clear mission: taking the driver off a forklift would be safer and save money. Seegrid is now poised as a leader in the $38 billion forklift market.