Bright Machines Microfactories Mark First Trip Around the Sun

June 24, 2020 | 3 min read

Bill Griffin, CRO, Bright Machines

Bright Machines was founded on the belief that manufacturing can be made faster, simpler and more affordable, when powered by intelligent software. Our goal from day one has been to transform the manufacturing industry by including intelligent software from the ground up, what we call Software-Defined Manufacturing.  

We realized our first step toward this future one year ago this week with the introduction of the first software-defined microfactory. Combining our intelligent software, Brightware, with adaptive, configurable robotics and hardware, our microfactories improve the way products are assembled and inspected.

Global Impact and Success Stories

I’m thrilled manufacturers worldwide have discovered the improved scale, efficiency and quality that can be achieved with our brand of intelligent, automated product assembly and inspection. Today we have more than a 100 deployments assembling and inspecting products for original equipment and contract manufacturers across the globe.  Here’s what two of them have to say:

“With our footprint, scale and experience, partnering with a company like Bright Machines creates a great platform to innovate,” Raejeanne Skillern, President of Communications, Enterprise and Cloud, Flex.

“Our devices impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to centralized testing. Bright Machines is helping us quickly scale our production capacity to make our products even more accessible to remote areas,” Dr. Helen Lee, Founder and CEO, DRW.

Where the old way of assembly is manually labor intensive, our bright way gives manufacturers, like Flex and DRW, a real opportunity to expand business and make their factories best in class. And the numbers tell the real story. For example, by replacing a portion of their manual labor with a microfactory, a major North American automotive manufacturer  reduced defect rates by 88% in the development of their infotainment centers  and  one of the world’s leading single cup coffee maker brands increased units produced per hour by 50%. With a price at or below the cost of manual product assembly, the benefits of microfactories are hard to ignore. Hear more from Flex and DRW and read how others have realized the benefits of our microfactories.

We Are Just Getting Started

We’re thrilled that not only a growing number of OEM and EMS companies recognize the value of Bright Machines solutions, but the industry has too. CB Insights and Fast Company included us on their recent list of 50 future unicorns (companies that they think will eventually be valued at $1B or more), we landed near the top on Forbes list of companies applying science like machine learning and computer vision to transform an industry, and the World Economic Forum included us among their annual class of new Tech Pioneers.

Taking advantage of machine learning, computer vision and a cloud-based architecture, our microfactories get more intelligent and automated over time, delivering a critical element to digitizing factory operations. Making manufacturing more accessible to anyone to build anything is core to who we are as a company and we continue to invest in improving our customers’ product assembly process today that will support the complete digitization of the factory in the (near) future.

To learn more about our capabilities in building the backbone of AI, visit Bright Machines.