Manufacturers investing in robotic systems face more than a technology decision. They are navigating complex engineering requirements, undefined processes, and a long list of integration details that can make or break the outcome. We sat down with Nolan Smith, lead robotics engineer for Premier Automation, to talk through how Premier approaches that work and what manufacturers need to understand before they commit to a robotic investment.
Premier's robotics process starts well before any equipment is ordered. The first step is a site visit where the team observes the actual operation rather than relying solely on a production manager's description of it.
"One of the things we have been emphasizing is having people go and actually watch the system run for an hour or so," Nolan said. "There is a lot you can pick up about a customer's workflow and exactly what that process is going to require just by watching it run."
Watching an operation in person surfaces details that often get missed when scope is defined from a conference room. How an operator actually interacts with parts, how much variation exists from piece to piece, how material is presented to the system. These are the kinds of details that determine whether a robotic solution will work in the real environment, not just the idealized version of it.
Once a project is awarded, Premier runs a formal internal handoff bringing the quoting engineer, robotics manager, and assigned engineers together to align on scope and identify gaps before design begins. Mechanical, electrical, and software engineers then work in parallel, with regular check-ins to keep their paths coordinated.
"The better we collaborate on a project, the better we deliver and the better the system performs when it is time to test for the customer," Nolan explained.
Before anything is ordered, Premier runs internal design reviews to flag engineering risk, uses finite element analysis to validate fabricated components, runs offline robot programming to verify motion paths and estimate cycle time, and gets customer sign-off on the system design. The process closes with a factory acceptance test at Premier's facility, where the customer sees the system running before it is shipped and installed.
A robot vendor can sell you hardware. An integrator builds you a complete, functioning system.
Most manufacturers, particularly smaller ones, do not have the in-house expertise to take on a full robotic integration. They may have one person with PLC familiarity, and very few have deep experience with industrial robot platforms and their programming environments.
"Integrators like Premier are very much a one-stop shop," Nolan said. "We do all the design work, all the programming, all the sourcing of field devices and vendor components. We have the experience to integrate all of that into a cohesive system, which allows for a much more manageable project scope than if manufacturers tried to take it on their own."
Premier's breadth also extends across application types. While many integrators build their business around one narrow category of robotic work, Premier has developed depth across material handling, material removal, robotic finishing, grinding, and welding.
"A lot of integrators will generally focus on just welding applications or just material removal," Nolan noted. "We have had experience across all of those different types of robotic projects, and I think that makes us a very appealing option to customers, especially if their entire production process would require different types of robotic applications."
When a project also requires controls or automation expertise beyond the robotic cell, Premier can pull from its internal automation group rather than coordinating with an outside firm. "We can have internal personnel work on basically every phase of the project," Nolan said. "We do not have to rely on an external company or try to communicate across Microsoft teams and meetings."
Two forces are reshaping what robotic systems can do and why manufacturers are pursuing them.
The first is AI. For a long time, robots operated in tightly controlled environments because they were blind and deterministic. Parts had to be in exactly the same place every cycle. AI is beginning to change the equation, enabling systems to accommodate part variation, detect defects, and execute path planning in ways once considered cost-prohibitive.
"AI is beginning to influence many different areas of a robotic system, from vision to robot programming to PLC integration," Nolan said. "You can really accommodate a lot more part variability now, and detect different defects, do path planning, things that really were not possible before or were a lot more costly to do."
The second is labor availability. Manufacturers are increasingly turning to robotics to fill genuine gaps in their production process, particularly in applications that are physically demanding, repetitive, or hazardous to human operators.
"The conversation has really shifted to focusing on dirty, dangerous, and dull applications," Nolan said. "Those are the ones where we have seen the most actualized projects, ones where it is really not safe for an operator to do it and it is also very repetitive."
There is also an employee retention dimension to automation investments that often goes unexamined. "When you do not have employees who are constantly at risk of injuring themselves or working in dangerous and dirty environments, they are a little bit more engaged," Nolan observed. "Having those operators working on the actual systems gives them more of a sense of being technically engaged with the product they are working with, rather than just doing a repetitive task."
Nolan was candid about how his perspective on project success has evolved over his career.
"Earlier in my career, I was in the mindset that successful projects were defined by the elegance of the CAD model or the complexity of the code," he said. "Now I am starting to realize that some of that technical success is just a byproduct of risk management."
Communication is the clearest indicator of project performance, in his view. "You can tell how well projects will perform based on how well we are communicating up front at the very beginning and throughout," Nolan said. "Projects that we communicate well on often perform better than the projects where we fall short on that."
Proof of concept testing has also become central to how he approaches design. Using 3D printed parts or bench testing with customer samples early surfaces mechanical problems before they become expensive. "Three days of testing will save us a month of free work if something is done incorrectly," he said.
Designing for graceful failure rounds out the lessons Nolan considers most formative. Manufacturers often push for the fastest possible system, but a system that runs fast and faults frequently creates more problems than it solves. "It is relatively cost effective to design around failsafes," he said. "If you can design a system that can handle a dropped part and recover in ten seconds rather than requiring ten minutes of operator intervention, that is going to be vastly superior in the long run when it comes to uptime and reliability."
The manufacturers who get the most out of a robotic investment are the ones who approach it as an engineering problem, not just a purchasing decision. Choosing a partner with the process discipline, application breadth, and collaborative approach to work through the details before anything is built is what separates a system that performs from one that falls short of expectations. Premier Automation's robotics group engineers custom solutions for complex manufacturing challenges, including material removal, robotic finishing, machine tending, welding, and advanced part handling. If you are evaluating a robotic investment or working through a process that has not been successfully automated before, reach out to Premier's robotics team to start the conversation: https://premierautomation.com/robotics/overview/