Harshit Sureka: A Strong Leader & A True Believer In Making Indian Factories More Efficient Through AI
Harshit Sureka
Founder
Below is an excerpt of CEO Insights’ interaction with Harshit where he walks us through some of the significant turning points of his professional years and Robro Systems’ growth trajectory.
What inspired you to venture into the automation industry?And how Robro Systems specializes in automatic camera based error proofing & quality control systems for factories? Also, after a great professional journey in the segment, what drives you today?
With the ever changing manufacturing environment,factories have a low tolerance for inefficiencies in their processes. Automation is the answer to making our nations factories more efficient. Within the vast field of Industry Automation, we currently focus on Machine Vision Systems that learn continuously and are IoT enabled!
All Industrial processes require inspection to ensure product quality. Counting, Sorting, and Identification are bottleneck activities for most industries. Errors in these processes lead to heavy losses and wastage. We have numerous case studies and examples of how our vision systems have helped companies save inspection costs and eliminate wastage.
The joy of using technology to solve real-world problems keeps me going. The faith of our customers in us keeps us moving forward on this uphill road. We are living in a world where resources are expensive and limited. The potential of being able to contribute to the effective management of these resources while ensuring minimum wastage is what has been driving me for all these years and I am confident it will
do the same for the forth coming years.
Robro Systems is a leader in the machine vision market. What is its inception story? Tell us about the unique propositions that you offer to your customers?
I have a strong business family back ground, and business runs in the blood. I have always been techy and throughout my education and work experience in India and abroad, I learnt how businesses need a clear definition of the problem they are trying to solve. We started Robro Systems with intent to make Robotics and Machine Vision accessible to factories of all scales as we saw the huge scope of factory automation. It was me and a former intern for the first six months where we tried various things and finally started developing our machine vision product Kiara. Now we are 17+ people with our systems running in 10+ cities.
In your professional journey so far, which are the milestones that bestowed you with utmost satisfaction both as an individual and an entrepreneur?
I have always felt satisfaction when a project gets deployed. I’d say that each job that I worked on is a significant milestone in my professional journey as it provided me with the opportunity to experience variety from driverless military tanks for the US Department of Defense to Automating Jewellery manufacturing. As an entrepreneur, my firsts have been my milestones the first deployment the first hire the first audit the first complaint and the first failure.
With the variety of industries we work with, each system we put out in the real world is a milestone from identifying headless match sticks to counting rasgullas. The learnings from every step make us better.
What are the changes in market behaviour that you anticipate and what are the opportunities that you foresee? Focusing on the machine vision systems what are your future goals as Founder/CEO of the company?
I anticipate a steady increase in demand for these systems as well as a slight decline in cost. As the market becomes more aware of what these systems can accomplish, how having AI-Eyes in
Robro Systems is a leader in the machine vision market. What is its inception story? Tell us about the unique propositions that you offer to your customers?
I have a strong business family back ground, and business runs in the blood. I have always been techy and throughout my education and work experience in India and abroad, I learnt how businesses need a clear definition of the problem they are trying to solve. We started Robro Systems with intent to make Robotics and Machine Vision accessible to factories of all scales as we saw the huge scope of factory automation. It was me and a former intern for the first six months where we tried various things and finally started developing our machine vision product Kiara. Now we are 17+ people with our systems running in 10+ cities.
As the market becomes more aware of what these systems can accomplish, how having AI-Eyes in your factory can boost your efficiency manufacturers will come up with their own solutions suited for their specific problems
In your professional journey so far, which are the milestones that bestowed you with utmost satisfaction both as an individual and an entrepreneur?
I have always felt satisfaction when a project gets deployed. I’d say that each job that I worked on is a significant milestone in my professional journey as it provided me with the opportunity to experience variety from driverless military tanks for the US Department of Defense to Automating Jewellery manufacturing. As an entrepreneur, my firsts have been my milestones the first deployment the first hire the first audit the first complaint and the first failure.
With the variety of industries we work with, each system we put out in the real world is a milestone from identifying headless match sticks to counting rasgullas. The learnings from every step make us better.
What are the changes in market behaviour that you anticipate and what are the opportunities that you foresee? Focusing on the machine vision systems what are your future goals as Founder/CEO of the company?
I anticipate a steady increase in demand for these systems as well as a slight decline in cost. As the market becomes more aware of what these systems can accomplish, how having AI-Eyes in
your factory can boost your efficiency manufacturers will come up with their own solutions suited for their specific problems. Our goal is to ensure our products are flexible and easy to use such that machine operators and their supervisors can train our systems effortlessly. We are further pushing to increase the integration of IoT into our systems such that customers can get data and analytics to perform root-cause analysis for defects and get actionable insights.
We have a strong motivation to support medium and small scale units as they are the backbone of India. Improving the efficiency and quality of such units directly leads to better earnings, increased productivity and lower wastage positively impacting social status.
Having spent so many years in this profession, what advice would you give to the upcoming leaders in this segment?
The very first thing I’d say is “Welcome! What problem are you trying to solve?”. The key to setting up a sustainable business around automation is to focus your efforts on developing products that solve problems. Once you’ve identified that, you should have modular software and flexible systems which will be adapted for different projects no two projects are alike!This will help bring standardization to your processes and systems.
Another important thing to remember is that technology is only a small part of the full solution. Getting the technology right is important but ensuring that it can integrate with the client’s process and deliver benefit is equally, if not more important. Part of our job is also to educate our customers and make them aware of how automation can enhance their factories. This will be a continuous process as automation technologies evolve at a rapid pace.
Harshit Sureka, Founder, RobroSystems
Harshit is the founder of Robro Systems who believes in empowering people and taking everything as an experience while working towards bringing robotics and automation to factories of all scales. He worked stints for the US Department of Defense, a German Robotics Startup and with Fortune 500 companies which he has already established his fine network to deliver excellence to the customers.
Hobbies:
Trekking & Backpacking, Travelling, Cricket and Reading!
Favourite Cuisine:
Street side chaat
Favourite Book:
The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger (Disney CEO)
Favourite Travel Destination:
Foggy and silent mountains
We have a strong motivation to support medium and small scale units as they are the backbone of India. Improving the efficiency and quality of such units directly leads to better earnings, increased productivity and lower wastage positively impacting social status.
Having spent so many years in this profession, what advice would you give to the upcoming leaders in this segment?
The very first thing I’d say is “Welcome! What problem are you trying to solve?”. The key to setting up a sustainable business around automation is to focus your efforts on developing products that solve problems. Once you’ve identified that, you should have modular software and flexible systems which will be adapted for different projects no two projects are alike!This will help bring standardization to your processes and systems.
Another important thing to remember is that technology is only a small part of the full solution. Getting the technology right is important but ensuring that it can integrate with the client’s process and deliver benefit is equally, if not more important. Part of our job is also to educate our customers and make them aware of how automation can enhance their factories. This will be a continuous process as automation technologies evolve at a rapid pace.
Harshit Sureka, Founder, RobroSystems
Harshit is the founder of Robro Systems who believes in empowering people and taking everything as an experience while working towards bringing robotics and automation to factories of all scales. He worked stints for the US Department of Defense, a German Robotics Startup and with Fortune 500 companies which he has already established his fine network to deliver excellence to the customers.
Hobbies:
Trekking & Backpacking, Travelling, Cricket and Reading!
Favourite Cuisine:
Street side chaat
Favourite Book:
The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger (Disney CEO)
Favourite Travel Destination:
Foggy and silent mountains