{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"India Tech Report","title":"Saurabh Chandra on ‘future factory’ vision in era of physical AI","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2935,"description":"In this episode, I catch up with Saurabh Chandra, founder and CEO at Ati Motors, to discuss his views on how factory automation is evolving in the era of physical AI, as robots finally begin to “break out of the yellow cages” of safety zones.Ati Motors makes autonomous mobile robots for materials movement in factories, and its customers include several Fortune 500 companies. As Ati expands its footprint into the US market, Saurabh outlines a future where Physical AI and software agents work in tandem to redefine the “Digital Assembly Line.”The idea of a “lights out” factory or a “dark factory” is decades old. Engineers dreamed of fully automated installations where robots and machines took over — without human intervention — and made useful things for us. Cars, for example.But a combination of both technical challenges and real-world non-engineering problems ensured that such factories remained more science fiction and less reality. Until recently. Today, many experts in the industry and advanced manufacturing believe that we’re approaching a tipping point with respect to automation and robotics technologies.In this conversation, Saurabh outlines the idea of an AI-led materials movement orchestration platform that Ati has already deployed with some early customers. The idea is that factory executives are beginning to realize that the real value on the shop floor isn’t the robot itself, but the material it moves.Saurabh explains why traditional ERP systems often fail to track Work-in-Progress (WIP) inventory, leaving a visibility problem as SKU complexity has multiplied manifold over the last 15 years. By creating a “spatial system of record” that tracks every trolley, bin, and staging area in real-time, Ati Motors is helping global giants move from intuitive management to quantified, data-driven orchestration.Global manufacturing is currently caught in a pincer movement of structural labour shortages across advanced economies and a geopolitical push to reshore...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/klwtZi6_OVxR1RQx-EUqBBLq9JNmkk2p0xt3ov7-eeg/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kYjRi/MTNkNDVhMTVlOThm/MDM4ZmVlYjFmZGNl/OGFiNy5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}