VIDEO: 3M™ Abrasives: Transforming How Work Gets Done

Why should a person do a dangerous job or a dirty, repetitive job that nobody really wants to do? Let the automation do that.

The sky's the limit for automated material removal. I mean this is just such a right target for automation. We're going to be solving problems for end users. We're going to be getting people safer and better jobs and so it's a great next step for automation and once we start to see more adoption and really start to reap the benefits of automation of these applications, we're going to see it take off and so in my opinion the sky's the limit.

Abrasives are 3M's original product. We have been working on abrasive technologies for 120 years, so we bring that domain expertise in sanding and grinding, bring that to robotics to enable material removal.

The culture of innovation at 3M is amazing. They are partnering with an early stage technology startup like Gray Matter, with the end goal of continuously improving the processes and the operations of the end customer.

There's many things coming together that are really going to allow this Market to grow at a much more significant rate. And it's the easier to use, easier to program robots. It's the dedication to the process and some of the process tools that 3M is bringing to the table. When I look at our relationship with 3M and we've always been very impressed with that commitment to innovation and that commitment to improving the process, and that technology and that falls in line with kind of FANUC's approach to innovation.

We have a line of sight through our market research that robotic material removal is going to approach the size and scale of robotic welding, and with that there's going to be tremendous opportunity for people to jump onto this new white space opportunity that companies like 3M and our partners we are really driving it. We're going to enable it to happen and become much more mainstream.