The Robot Industry Podcast

I have been a big fan of QNX Operating System for many years, since my early days at ATS Automation Tooling Systems in Cambridge, ON. We needed real time OS for some of the complex machines we were building. QNX filled the bill and more. QNX is now owned by Blackberry now, yes the company that brought us some of the first cell phones!

Jim Hirsch joins me today for this edition of The Robot Industry Podcast.

With over 25 years in Software sales experience in the Federal, Aerospace & Defense, Industrial Automation, Medical Device and Telecommunications and Automotive markets.

Innovative executive with leadership experience ranging from startups to fortune 100 companies. Extensive experience spanning software & solution sales, business development, executive relationships, strategic partnerships, compliance management in a number of vertical markets.

His career spans US Navy, Raytheon, multiple successful startups (IPO & acquired), Cadence Design Systems, Wind River Systems, Intel and Ansys.

Here are some of my questions to Jim:

Who is QNX, what is their history? How did the company get started?

What is a real time operating system? 

Where can I find QNX in what industries?

The current owners of QNX is Blackberry, correct?

Are automobiles more and more powered by QNX, what does it do in my car?

For some of our listeners, what is LINIX?

What is Latency?

I know that there are a lot of things that you cannot talk about, but I suspect that you are working with NVIDIA, defense, humanoid and surgical robotics?

Do you have a few examples or use cases of where QNX is being used?

Startup companies are an important part of your ecosystem, why is that?

What os QNIX everywhere program?

I know that we have talked about safety security, people and safe > are these things keeping your customers up at night?

I see that QNX is very active in education, why is that?

FDA and security and the remediation of end of life software

You have a new report that is just about to come out, can you give us a sneak peek?

How do you hire for talent? HQ is in Ottawa, correct

Did we forget about anything

Hobbies?

How can people get a hold of you?

Thx to Matthew Chandler for helping set up this interview, he is global communications at QNX Blackberry.

Today’s podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing and I would like to thank my team: Chris Gray for the music, Geoffrey Bremner for audio production, and my business partner Janet. 

Special thx to my Senior Audio Software Engineer, Geoff Bremner and you can find more information on his Linketree:

linktr.ee/gbaudio

Be safe out the...

Welcome to The Robot Industry Podcast #164 aka Automation Matters podcast. I became aware of Kelly Boyi from my friends at ATS Automation. He is Canadian, born in Nigeria and now living in USA.

We have never met in person only online and on Teams. I was impressed with his approach to mentorship and his fearless approach to using LinkedIn and other social platforms.

I had always thought that a large engineering company would not like individuals broadcasting on LinkedIn. He broke that ceiling and started doing workshops and got hired. That's when it hit him, you can make money on speaking and guiding people.

An apology to Kelly, I got so busy that I forgot we recorded this episode and thanks to a sidebar conversation with Geoffrey Bremner, for the reminder.

We talk about consistency, bulk creative, and the importance of talking on LinkedIn.

Sharing personal stories on LinkedIn.

Growing your Network.

The visual platform of LinkedIn.

ATS Automation

Creating value.

Following companies and thought leaders in your industry.

Connecting people.

Photography and video.

The importance of attending events.

Setting up your LinkedIn, profile photos.

If you would like to find out more about Kelly, you can find him on well, LinkedIn. I suspect that Kelly will be back in Canada someday and will look forward to meeting him in person.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyboyi

Today’s podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing and I would like to thank my team: Chris Gray for the music, Geoffrey Bremner for audio production, and my business partner Janet. 

Special thanks to my Senior Audio Software Engineer, Geoff Bremner you can find more information on his Linketree, linktr.ee/gbaudio

By the way, here is my post about Robots made in Canada.

Be safe out there!

Jim

Jim Beretta

Customer Attraction & The Robot Industry Podcast

London, ON

Notes

https://www.konsultkelly.com/kellyboyi

Welcome to The Robot Industry Podcast #163. At Pickle Robot they are applying Physical AI to truck unloading and developing generalized autonomy that will unlock robot orchestration across entire logistics processes.

Welcome back to the show AJ. Can you remind me how you got into this industry?

Tell me a bit about the journey and what's happening now at Pickle Robot.

Let’s go over the math again about parcels, packaging and boxes.

Deployed since?

Let's talk about the environment: dock doors weather, etc

Can you describe your robot arm, what has been updated and changed? 

Who is using the robot? What is the type of facility where you place your robot?

Languages and error correction, what are some of the adaptations that you have had to make to your system? 

What is happening in package sizes, bigger, smaller, longer, heavier?

Who are your customers?

I heard that you just hired a bunch of engineers.

What is the ROI of a Pickle robot system?

Who is the buyer?

Future of factories and delivery systems

Humanoid robot?

Have we forgotten to talk about anything?

https://www.picklerobot.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-meyer-2457594

Today’s podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing and I would like to thank my team: Chris Gray for the music, Geoffrey Bremner for audio production, and my business partner Janet. 

And I would like to thank my Senior Audio Software Engineer, Geoff Bremner and you can find more information on his Linketree, linktr.ee/gbaudio

Be safe out there!

Jim

Jim Beretta

Customer Attraction & The Robot Industry Podcast

London, ON

Hello Everyone and welcome to The Robot Industry Podcast, #Automate2026 edition.

My friend Chris Round and new friend Kojo are joining me for podcast #162. We are talking about sensors and Leuze is one of the premier safety sensor manufacturers in Europe.

Who is Leuze, what do you make?

What is a sensor? If I open one up what will I see?

What are people interested in sensing? Is there a trend?

How are you different?

What is happening in sensing from a high-level perspective?

Data question.

How do people buy sensors? Distribution or direct?

Who do you sell to? Are they machine builders or end customers, end users?

What are customers looking for, and what is keeping them up at night?

Any other trends? Are people spending more money? Do you also provide any other devices for sensing like cables or sensor brackets?

What is the future of sensing?

Automate question, what are you showing at the booth? Goals for the show?

What is your booth #?

Let me know what is missing?

Leuze Electronic, Inc.

2150 Northmont Parkway, Suite N
Duluth, GA 30096

Today’s podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing and I would like to thank my team: Chris Gray for the music, Geoffrey Bremner for audio production, and my business partner Janet. 

And I would like to thank my Senior Audio Software Engineer, Geoff Bremner and you can find more information on his Linketree, linktr.ee/gbaudio

Be safe out there!

Jim

Jim Beretta

Customer Attraction & The Robot Industry Podcast

London, ON

Hello everyone and welcome to The Robot Industry Podcast, edition #161. I welcome Hugo Lessnick from Averna in Montreal to the podcast. Hugo is the Engineering Manager at Averna, we are going to talk about test, automation, test software and well, all things test.

Hi Hugo, welcome to the podcast.

Can you tell me about Averna, the company?

What kind of systems do you build: integrated, standalone?

How did you get into this industry?

What is "testing" to you?

Are there some big overall trends in automated test?

In our warm-up, we talked about budgeting for test equipment, and it seems that people or companies tend to underestimate the costs for testing equipment.

How do you work with customers?

Test specification documents, can they be better?

Lets talk about machine vision and AI.

Do you ever work with companies to make their test specifications better, even though it might be harder for you?

You work with automation integrators and machine builders, because machine builders really dont have a specialty around precision testing?

When you are working in some industries like for medical devices it’s tricky because a company is trying to concurrently build the automation for the device and the test system at the same time, what happens then when you have to build in flexibility to your test or fixturing?

Do you have some projects that you can talk about?

Is there a really difficult test project that sticks out in your mind?

Are cycle times getting faster or slower?

Is there an ROI for the test solution?

What about GUIs and ergonomics, does that come into play a lot? Safety?

You have to commission automation around the world, different cultures, languages that is difficult, correct?

When you are recruiting for new people, what makes a good hire? Curiosity?

What is the future of test equipment and automation?

How can people get a hold of you?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugo-lessnick-eng-86b039115

https://www.averna.com/en/home?

Thanks for listening. Special thanks also to Amy Share the Content Marketing Team Lead at Averna for making this podcast easy, peasy.

Today’s podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing and I would like to thank my team: Chris Gray for the music, Geoffrey Bremner for audio production, and my business partner Janet. 

And I would like to thank my Senior Audio Software Engineer, Geoff Bremner and you can find more information on his Linketree, linktr.ee/gbaudio

Be safe out there!

Jim

Jim Beretta

Customer Attraction & The Robot Industry Podcast

London, ON