A menagerie of alpacas, llamas, porcupines, more
Lakeside Foods supports food pantries, feeding programs
August 26, 2024
NEENAH – For more than 60 years, Michael Kundinger – vice president of Kundinger, Inc. – said the company has strived to deliver products and solutions in fluid power, automation and process control to a wide range of industries.
The recently announced partnership with AUBO Robotics USA (AUBO), Michael said, underscores Kundinger’s commitment to supporting businesses seeking to improve their operations.
A win-win partnership
Michael said Kundinger was first introduced to AUBO at a trade show.
“We started a dialogue with them – discussing their technology and the ease of use of their solutions,” he said.
Detroit-based AUBO, Michael said, is known for its cutting-edge collaborative robots, or cobots, which are designed with fully open architecture.
He said this unique design allows businesses – even those new to automation – to implement these solutions without needing specialized coding knowledge, software or licenses.
AUBO’s product lineup includes robotic arms and fully automated solutions for welding and palletizing – which Michael said makes advanced automation accessible to companies of all sizes.
“AUBO’s mission to empower every business aligns perfectly with our values at Kundinger,” he said. “Their portfolio includes out-of-the-box ready solutions to sophisticated, custom-calibrated systems, which ensures our customers can find exactly what they need without extensive training or technical expertise.”
With the addition of AUBO, Michael said Kundinger is positioned to provide even more variety in automated solutions to ensure the products are accessible, functional and can meet the unique needs of all customers – regardless of size or experience level in automation.
“There are a lot of collaborative robots on the marketplace, but the one thing we’ve been looking for in terms of a product partner is something that really helps us bring solutions to our customers in the easiest way possible,” he said.
As the Kundinger team continued to familiarize itself with AUBO solutions, Michael said the partnership was “pretty much a no-brainer for us.”
“We realized they really have something that the average customer of ours could really embrace and implement themselves with very little effort,” he said. “Kundinger is a multi-state entity – so we have our locations in Wisconsin and Michigan, and AUBO (wants to) cover both those states, so it is an opportunity for us to have unlimited access to our customers.”
During the courtship process – “us learning more about them and them learning more about us” – Michael said it didn’t take long before both entities saw the potential a partnership could bring.
“AUBO is looking for its distribution partners to be able to bring these solutions to the market and fully support (that effort), which we can with our knowledgeable engineering staff and technical sales staff,” he said. “We’re able to work with our customers to be an advocate for implementing technology and solving the problems they are experiencing day in and day out.”
The way of the times
Nowadays, Michael said not much can be accomplished without a strong support system.
“There’s really nothing you can do these days and not really have someone in the background willing to support you,” he said.
Though Kundinger is calling upon its local customer base, many of them have a national reach or even international reach.
“So partnering with a company like AUBO, it’s important to us that they have the structure in place to handle the support side of things,” he said. “If we start a project in Michigan or Wisconsin, but it ends up in Canada or Mexico or even Europe or Asia, we’re confident it’s going to be supported because there is a global company supporting it.”
Michael said Kundinger has known for a while this is an area of need for its customer base – implementing these types of solutions.
“Now that we have that perfect solution through our partnership with AUBO, we can start focusing on the problems customers are having, give them quick solutions and get them to that next level in terms of adding automation,” he said. “Maybe they’ve been struggling to start. Well, this is a great way for them to start their path and their journey with automating certain portions of their manufacturing process.”
So far, Michael said Kundinger’s partnership with AUBO has been well-received by its customers.
“Our customers know we are solution providers, so they’re seeing this as another level of solution and support we can offer them,” he said.
Since the partnership was announced and work with AUBO has started, Michael said much of the effort has been focused on brand awareness and education.
“Educating people on these types of solutions and the ease of use of implementing the technology, is part of the process,” he said. “Companies (are gaining) that confidence needed to take that leap forward and know it isn’t going to break the bank. Understanding that this is an easy start, and they don’t have to worry about operations coming to a halt because of something we didn’t foresee.”
For more on Kundinger and its automation solutions, visit kundinger.com.
