The client wanted the impossible: Give a robot all the skills of a human welder.
Five years ago a custom automotive and marine supplier in Cleveland asked what was then an engineering consulting firm to help him with a labor shortage, and Path Robotics Inc. was born.
"The tolerances are incredibly tight, that you have to keep with welding," co-founder and CEO Andy Lonsberry said. "And if the gaps (between pieces of sheet metal) change from 0 to 4 millimeters, you have to be able to make adjustments on the fly, seeing what's coming, move to a weave, go up onto a lift, weld in.
"And these, again, are things that come very easily for a trained human welder. But for a robot, it's just impossible."
Except now it's possible.
Path Robotics has since moved to Columbus, and last year launched its first commercial robotics system based on the prototype built by two brothers and a fellow engineer in that factory basement, as Lonsberry told us as the latest guest in Columbus Business First's Newsmakers podcast.
We talk about how the Path team solved its impossible problem, what it's like to work in cramped quarters with your brother, and why at first Lonsberry told Drive Capital, "Go away."
The interview was recorded shortly after the company landed a $56 million venture capital round to expand sales and manufacturing of its AI-powered system. The round was led by VC firm Addition along with returning investors, Columbus-based Drive Capital LLC and California's Basis Set Ventures and Lemnos Lab.
Lonsberry founded the company with his brother, Alex Lonsberry, and fellow engineer Matt Klein. The fourth founder is Ken Lonsberry, their father, on the business side – he didn't have to work in the basement. Today Path has more than 100 employees and could top 160 by year's end.
Welding jargon like "weave" above makes sense in context, but a few terms in the interview might be unfamiliar: Tier One automotive are the very large suppliers to automakers, mass producing the same part. And in welding the "puddle" is the molten metal forming during the weld, which quickly hardens to join the parts.
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