Our Industry Innovators series interviews senior leaders across industrial technology industries, exploring the latest trends, upcoming technologies and pressing hot topics that are shaping the future.

We help business leaders in the warehouse automation and intralogistics markets grow their teams and Warehouse Automation Consultant James Disney recently had the privilege of speaking to Senior Manager – Intralogistics Solutions at KION Group, Kenny Watson.

Kenny discusses various aspects of the industry and shares his insights and experience. Watch the full interview here or read the full transcript below:

 

 

 

Today, I’ve got the pleasure of speaking with Kenny Watson, a senior automation manager from the KION Group. Kenny, can you give us a brief overview of yourself and your experience in automation?

Good afternoon, James. Thanks very much for that introduction. So I’m Kenny Watson, and I head up the automation sales for the KION Group, in particular the divisions of Linde, STILL, and the Mobile Automation for Dematic. And what gives me the privilege of being in that position is I’ve probably spent the last 30 years in and around both solution design, implementation, you know, the selling and the management of automated solutions of varying sorts. So that makes me both slightly knowledgeable, which can always be dangerous, but also, you know, excited for the future of automation in general.

 

Brilliant. And where did the passion for the industry come from. What made you want to be a part of this industry specifically?

Well, I’m maybe a bit unusual in the sense that I love change. I really enjoy change. I enjoy technology. And in particular, a lot of the advancements in technology that there’s been over the last three decades, and I could see in the very early stages that a lot of the IT world and technological developments were going to play a huge part across the industry. And I just wanted to be part of that and part of that kind of industry journey.

 

And speaking of change, what sort of changes have you seen in the industry so far?

Well, I mean, I think when you look across industry, you know, the whole advent of, you know, robotic technology within manufacturing and, you know, some of the improvements and the developments and particularly microchips and processing power of computers, you know, the decision making kind of logic that comes with those type of systems are probably some of the biggest areas of change that I’ve witnessed to make those types of solutions more credible, more economically and operationally credible for different markets.

 

Have you got any predictions of future changes that you can foresee?

Well, I think maybe, we saw each other yesterday didn’t we at the exhibition. (Tomorrow’s Warehouse) And I think what was really interesting for me was just seeing how camera and vision technology aligned to A.I., algorithmic logic are going to make that next step change, you know, in terms of performance and how the technology works operationally. And I think that’s a kind of I think that’s a pretty fantastic development.

 

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. What would you say are the biggest hurdles that you’ve faced in your career if there has been any?

I think the biggest issues that I’ve faced, particularly in the UK, have been cultural. I think the UK is very much an employment generation country and therefore the adoption of automated technology has been a lot slower than some of the other countries like Germany and France, you know, where there’s been a large uptake and implementation of these different solutions.

But, you know, we’re now starting to see a lot of progress and movement within the UK market because of the availability or the kind of cost of labor. And that’s a real kind of step change, I feel.

 

intralogistics


And how long do you think it will take for mobile robotics as a technology to be fully adopted and integrated into top integrators and businesses?

Yeah, it’s a good question. Well, I mean, I think what we tend to find is that when somebody is developing a new facility, then that’s the best opportunity for them to be able to implement or adopt new technologies and into those business advancements. When somebody has got an existing facility, it can be a bit more challenging to implement and integrate a solution.

And so I would say because of that, we’re probably another maybe 4 to 6 years away from a lot of organizations being able to take full advantage of the different type of automated solutions that exist today in the market.

 

And how do you think we can improve people’s trust in mobile robotics?

I think exposure, knowledge and referencing what’s out there, what other’s are doing and I think will give people the confidence that they need to consider implementing it for themselves. And there’s more and more evidence that’s being gained across the industry, and that’s going to give customers a good opportunity to know that they’re not pioneering and they’re not taking, you know, a large risk as being the first to market. They’re getting something that others have already, you know, gone through that journey before them.

 

Obviously, since 2020, we’ve seen a big boom of mobile robotics businesses globally. In more recent years, we’ve seen a few of these companies starting to struggle and perhaps close down offices in Europe. In your opinion, do you think the purge of the great startup wave has begun?

Yeah. I mean, I think you’re absolutely right. I think AMR technology, autonomous mobile robots, there’s something like 120 companies that are all offering in Europe a similar solution. And there’s probably about 80 to 90 of them are from the Asian continent. I think the big challenge those type of organizations have are big differences in safety technology and standards, but also just in terms of resource and having the ability to provide the right level of localized support to those customers.

You know, given their geography. And so I think as a result of that, there’s a lot of them that just that won’t advance. There’s some of them that will be absorbed into larger organizations because they’ve got a successful product or solution. And then there’s some that just don’t have the wherewithal to sort of scale in the right way to be successful ongoing.

 

Right. So it’s an aftermarket issue in your eyes?

Yeah. I mean, if you’re if you’re an organization in a country and somebody wants to sell you something from two continents away, then because you’re buying high technological solution and it’s business critical for you. So therefore, any stoppage or lack of continuation can have a real impact on what you’re doing, you want to make sure that you have somebody locally that can respond and fix whatever the problem is to keep your business running. And that’s where organizations like Linde, STILL and Dematic really come into their own because they all have localized engineers who are doing solutions like this already. So it’s just a natural extension to that portfolio.

 

Excellent. Yeah, I think that’s really insightful. Speaking of new technologies, AI is such a hot topic right now. Do you think AI will have a significant influence on the field of mobile robotics?

Yeah. I mean, I think it’s already having a significant, you know, kind of positive effect on meeting organization and meeting minutes and producing things in a lot faster way. Where I think it’ll really add value to the mobile robotics field is in decision making logic. And what I mean by that is it’ll be able to see and evidence something, know exactly what it is and take action as a result of the information that it sees.

So I think AI, combined with some of the vision technologies that are coming, I think are really going to be a really going to be a positive thing for mobile robotics in the next couple of years.

 

Do you think there’s any main challenges that it could face?

I think the biggest challenge will be the number of people that have the competence and the capability to develop and install these things. So A.I. is running at such a pace, organizations are obviously trying to put the infrastructure in place and put the training in place to try and keep up with those developments. So I think depending on how fast it accelerates and how companies can keep up with that, I think could be the biggest challenge.

 

What companies do you think are doing it the best right now in both the AI and the mobile robotics space?

Well, I think my companies are doing the best in the mobile robotics space, James, but you’d probably expect me to say that. And I think there’s so many organizations out there that are just taking different solutions and using them in different ways. I’m not really sure who’s using AI the best. I know that for a lot of our aftermarket adventures in particular, we’re using the AI to be able to help make decisions on, you know, maintenance and service and obsolescence of component parts and ongoing servicing requirements. So I think those things are already out there, and I think they’ll continue to be adapted to suit the use.

 

So, Kenny, what has been your biggest achievement in the last year, or is that anything that is coming up in the future that you’re really excited for?

Yeah. Well, I mean, in the last five or six years in my role, I’ve been selling to market. So I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve now got a number of new facilities out there that are operating with our technology. And those are business critical applications to, you know, global organizations. So I’m very proud of those achievements.

I think I’m now in a role where I’ve got the privilege of leading a small team, you know, of growing experts in the field of automation. And I’ve now got the challenge of making that team sell and develop and grow. And that’s something that I’m really excited about in the next couple of years.

 

I mean, that’s a great answer. Is there anyone in the industry who’s had significant impacts or influence on your style of work or the way you like to operate?

I think it’s an interesting question. I mean, I don’t know that I could necessarily highlight any one individual, but I think throughout my career, what I’ve tried to do and I think this might be of interest to anybody who’s just starting out is to listen to people who are already in a position of expertize, or who are being successful in a particular field.

Because if you can learn from those individuals who are driving that success, then for yourself that success will also be gained. So I think it’s about listening it’s about learning, and it’s about taking every opportunity that’s presented to you. And progress in that in a way that you’re comfortable with.

 

Listening, learning and taking that on board, is really good advice. Speaking of advice and people looking to join the industry, obviously, it’s an ever growing industry. Is there any specific advice other than obviously what you just mentioned that you would give to someone who’s looking to start up in automation?

I mean, I think for me, it is all about that learning space. It’s go and research and find out as much as you possibly can and, you know, join industry groups, go to online webinars and events, you know, listen to what the experts are saying and then do some more research because the more you know when you come into the industry, the faster your acceleration will be in what you’re kind of doing.

But then what I would say is be open minded to the fact that you’re going to learn a lot. Because these technologies I mean, I’m still learning, just when I think of land, you know, along comes a new technology and I have to learn the new technology and what’s going on. So it is a constant evolution of learning and I would just say to be open minded to that and to to learn as much as you possibly can.

 

 

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