Rethinking Manufacturing Through Innovation: Why I’m Joining Bright Machines September 26, 2024 | 4 min read Chris Stori, CEO, Bright Machines Time to market, quality, and data are essential for successful product launches. Whether scaling production or iterating on a new design, gaining visibility into the manufacturing process — knowing where defects occur and correcting them early — is crucial. This insight often makes the difference between a smooth launch and costly delays. Bright Machines vastly improves product consistency and quality, while providing data previously hard to capture. With the Brightware Platform and Smart Skills, our computer vision and perception stack, Bright Machines delivers flexible manufacturing automation and data collection that was not previously possible. Customers gain insights through advanced data tracing, enabling early defect correction, and root cause analysis, long before products reach the market. As a result, products can reach the market faster, and with better quality. Bright Machines’ Solution for Flexible, Fast Manufacturing The manufacturing world is at a pivotal moment. AI is reshaping industries and driving demand for rapid manufacturing — particularly in compute, data storage, and network hardware. These market forces are compounded by the need for greater flexibility, the need to adapt quickly to changing market conditions, increasing attention to supply chain security, and emerging onshoring trends. These trends are not confined just to AI infrastructure — the broader electronics manufacturing industry faces these same challenges. Bright Machines’ software-defined automation solves these complex challenges. As companies seek more flexibility and faster time-to-market, the need for smart manufacturing solutions has never been higher. The Perfect Combination of Cutting-Edge Technology and Talent For any company to be successful, you must have both the technological capabilities and the talent to bring it to life. Bright Machines is one of the rare companies that has both of these key ingredients. Its full-stack environment integrates software, robotics, and automation, putting Bright Machines in the perfect position to rethink how we approach the entire manufacturing life cycle. By offering a full-stack environment, Bright Machines integrates cutting-edge technology with the agility that modern manufacturers require to stay competitive. “For any company to be successful, you must have both the technological capabilities and the talent to bring it to life. Bright Machines is one of the rare companies that has both of these key ingredients.” At every step in my career — whether at Cisco, Meraki, or McKinsey — the people were key to my and the companies’ success. When I first met the Bright Machines team, I was impressed by their dedication, hard work, and shared commitment to transforming the manufacturing industry. This team, with expertise across manufacturing, software, and robotics, shares a unified vision to revolutionize the way products are manufactured. Building a team with this level of knowledge and experience is incredibly difficult, but Bright Machines has done just that. Scaling for the Future: My Vision for Bright Machines During my 11 years at Cisco and Meraki and most recently as SVP and General Manager for Cisco’s Enterprise Networking, Meraki, and IoT businesses, I led teams responsible for all aspects of delivering a best in class platform and infrastructure hardware. During that time, Meraki grew from serving 18,000 customers to over 600,000, propelling Cisco Meraki to market leadership. What made this growth possible was a new way to deploy and manage your IT infrastructure combined with the convergence of IT, IoT, and physical environments — transforming the way networks were managed. At Bright Machines, I see a similar opportunity to reshape product design and manufacturing. My experience in scaling software-defined solutions, supporting large enterprise customers, and navigating complex industry challenges will serve the team and me well at Bright Machines as we expand our solutions, deepen partnerships with companies, such as Microsoft and Nvidia, and scale the company to meet the growing demand for speed, flexibility, and security. With a stellar team, Fortune 500 customers, and world-class partners, Bright Machines is poised to change how we deliver high-quality products. Following our $126M Series C fundraise, we are ready to accelerate our mission of transforming manufacturing through AI and automation. Learn more about Chris Stori’s appointment as CEO in our press release. Read the latest exclusive article on Semafor. To learn more about our capabilities in building the backbone of AI, visit Bright Machines. Share by Twitter LinkedIn Email See all blog