Is that a robot dog in the lobby? To drive innovation, look inward first

When a guest walks into our headquarters at Stellix, we want them to feel welcome. But the first interaction they have isn’t with a receptionist. It’s with Stella, our robot dog.

Stella is one of the Spot® robots invented by Boston Dynamics. We acquired her to help bring our company’s “internal innovation” strategy to life.

At Stellix, internal innovation is our approach to understanding and applying emerging technologies. We work on the cutting edge of industries such as life sciences, energy and manufacturing. When you’re undertaking first-in-kind projects, you don’t have a wealth of past experience to inform your next steps.

To gain practical understanding of how to leverage new technology, we learn and experiment through an in-house innovation environment. We get the benefit of hands-on interaction and an accelerated learning curve with the technology. And we can identify the processes and change management practices that need to be developed or changed to optimise adoption.

What is internal innovation?

If you aren’t using internal innovation in your own company, you’re missing out on a significant competitive advantage. The internal innovation approach allows our team to offer unique benefits to our customers:

• Improved product quality. By testing innovations internally, we can call out and resolve issues before implementing a product with a customer.
• Enhanced efficiency. The technologies we test often streamline our own operations, leading to cost savings and faster delivery for customers.
• Deeper understanding. Our employees gain expertise with new technologies or processes that allow them to better support our customers.
• Reduced risk. We provide a controlled testing environment and a “safe space” to address potential problems, minimising negative impacts on customers.
• Increased confidence. By acquiring hands-on experience with successful implementations internally, we can confidently roll out customer-facing changes.

By using the “inside out” approach and focusing on internal innovation first, we can create a solid foundation for customer-facing innovations. The resulting increases in reliability, efficiency and value ultimately accelerate adoption and shorten the timeline for making an impact.

Finding the right allies for innovation

Our company wants to create a manufacturing environment that is fully automated and interconnected. It’s our job to build that environment for, and with, our customers, and our relationship with Boston Dynamics and the Spot robot is a significant step in the right direction. Innovative technology is fast-moving and risky, and having the right collaborator is critical. We chose to work with Boston Dynamics based on its best-in-class technology, reputation for excellence and commitment to customers.

The robot can help transform the way frontline workers do their jobs. A Spot robot can consistently execute visual inspections and data capture tasks, which are critical in industries such as life sciences manufacturing. Traditionally, these tasks have been labour-intensive and prone to human error. With its advanced mobility and sensing capabilities, the robot can perform these tasks with unparalleled precision and consistency. Human workers can then focus on performing more complex tasks, more efficiently.

At Stellix, we will be using Stella in our customer experience centre to demonstrate an integrated manufacturing execution system for life science. When you interact with Stella, you instantly have a different experience. You can’t help but wonder what else is possible. The promise of Industry 4.0 is that it will fundamentally change the way we work, and Stella’s presence encourages us to shift our thinking. 

There’s more potential than we could have imagined, and our team is continuing to uncover potential applications to add value for our customers.