How Robtn works
You robotize a task, not a robot.
A robot has no application of its own. You never robotize a robot, you robotize a task. The application is emergent from four things: the part, the task, the tooling that touches the part, and the integration around it. Two engineers can solve the same welding job with completely different cells. So Robtn runs in one direction: characterize reality from the part outward, derive requirements, gate feasibility honestly, and only then talk about hardware. The robot is one of the last decisions, and the least decisive.
The eight stages
The flow runs in one direction. Two of the stages are gates: if the answer is no, the best engineering advice is to stop, not to sell you a robot.
- 1Tell Robtn the problem
Describe your line, machine, or task in plain language, the way you would to a colleague. Robtn starts where a good engineer does, by asking whether automating it even makes sense: volume, labour cost, risk, and a realistic payback. If there is no business case, the honest answer is do not automate.
- 2Characterize the part
Most projects live or die here. Geometry, weight, material behaviour, and above all variability and presentation: is every unit identical and neatly fixtured, or a mix of SKUs dumped in a bin? The gap between those two is often the difference between a modest cell and one several times the cost.
- 3Characterize the task
What physical transformation happens, and can the robot run blind on a repeatable path, or must it sense and react mid-task with vision or force feedback? That open-loop versus closed-loop question drives a large share of cost and complexity.
- 4Define the requirements
Quantify success: throughput and takt for the whole cell, the difference between repeatability and accuracy, the environment (footprint, cleanroom, washdown, heat), and the safety regime, which sets the standards that apply.
- 5Feasibility gate
Before designing anything, ask honestly whether today's technology can do this at this cost. Some tasks stay genuinely hard. This is where Robtn earns trust by saying so: this part stays manual, or this needs a custom end-effector and a real conversation with an integrator, not an off-the-shelf match.
- 6Design the solution stack
Automation is a system, not a robot. The end-effector, sensing, feeders and fixtures, safety, and controls. The gripper or tool is where the task physically happens and is frequently the hardest, most custom part of the whole cell.
- 7Select the robot
Only now is the arm chosen, as a filtering exercise against everything above: payload, reach, axes, repeatability, IP rating, collaborative or not. Under-spec disqualifies; over-spec is waste. The robot is the last decision because it is the least decisive.
- 8Validate and deploy
Simulate or prototype the risky parts, map to the safety and industry standards, then commission and iterate. First-pass cells rarely hit takt on day one, and an honest method plans for that.
Advice first, then the right people
Robtn does this scoping with you, grounded in a verified knowledge base and cited, never invented. Then, and only then, it recommends verified suppliers and independent experts, ranked purely by fit with your problem. Payment never buys ranking or placement. And when a problem needs a human, Robtn says so and points you to an expert who can take it on.