A few years ago, Richtech Robotics would call hospitality groups and offer them robots. They got laughed out of the office. The answer was always the same. We’re a people company. Now they’re building an 8,000 square foot factory in Las Vegas. Three production lines for robots and sensors, all managed by AI. They’d planned it for 2027, but a new FCC rule made them move it up to this year. I talked with Richtech’s COO, Phil Zheng, at IMTS. He told me why their humanoid robots have eyes that don’t do anything. Why Chinese citizens might not love robots…
Author: Noah Graff
I worked remotely last week to keep an eye on my son Abe while he was off school. Amazingly, he played with toys for several hours by himself without disturbing me. Abe constantly imagines stories playing out between his toy vehicles and action figures on the fly. A dinosaur eats a truck and a barbie doll and he proclaims it an omnivore. Meanwhile, I try to play next to him, and I go through the motions. I get writer’s block, while he tells story after story. Abe builds with Legos and blocks letting a project evolve. He started building a…
My guest today, Doug Rizzo, has been working in machine shops for over 55 years, and he’s only 62. Doug worked in his father’s company through good times and terrible, and did applications for Doosan. Now, he’s a plant manager by day and runs his own shop for six or seven hours at night. Doug says he loves all of it, from doing applications, to making fixtures, to cleaning oil off machines. He says it’s where he’s meant to be. It’s where he finds flow. ******** Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. . View the podcast…
Open your fridge and grab a beer without knocking anything else over. It’s usually not hard for a human to do it. But getting a robot to do the same task can take an engineer weeks or months. George Konidaris is a professor of computer science at Brown University, director of the Intelligent Robot Lab, and cofounder of Realtime Robotics. Their technology does that kind of motion planning in minutes instead of weeks, and it’s running on the manufacturing lines of major automakers right now. He was on the show three years ago, when the technology worked in the lab.…
Today’s guest on the show is Paul Huber, CEO of COMEX, in Monroe Connecticut. Paul is a machinery dealer specializing in cam Swiss automatics. That’s cam Swiss, not CNC. I’m talking about Bechlers, Stroms and Escomatics, not Citizens. Paul is 84, but proudly says feels like he is 60 as he raises his 17-year-old son. He has been working on screw machines for over 67 years, starting as an apprentice in Switzerland. Early in his career, Paul worked as a technician for European screw machine builders. Later, he ran his own production shop in the US. Then he became a…
The first quarter of 2026 stunk for Graff-Pinkert’s used machinery business. But fortunately, in the last few months, we’ve made some really good deals, selling old Davenport and Acme screw machines, as well as some expensive late model CNC multi-spindles. Today, Lloyd Graff and I give our take on why the year unfolded this way and what we predict the machining industry will look like for the rest of the year. We’re optimistic because it seems like onshoring is real and tariff surprises are no longer a surprise. Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. . View…
We’re on vacation this week. So we’re publishing one of my favorite Blog/Videos that’s been on my mind lately. I highly recommend you watch the video version of this podcast. Click on the link to go to the video. I won a few big matches on my high school Tennis team, but I was never awesome. I never won the big tournaments. What killed me was that I always had more fun and played better in practice than in big matches when pressure made my muscles tight. For the last few months, I’ve been fascinated by a discovery a tennis pro…
Today’s show is the first episode of our new season about Swiss-Type CNC machining. Our guest is Marc Klecka, founder and president of Concentric Corporation, a prominent distributor of Citizen-Cincom CNC Swiss lathes in Cleveland, Ohio. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast, or listen with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. Main Points Marc talks about his company, Concentric, which has been distributing Citizen Swiss machines for 31 years and Miyano for 10 years (after Citizen acquired the company). (2:20) Marc gives his “5-year-old explanation” of Swiss CNC Machining (sliding headstock machining). He says the…
My guest today teaches happiness for a living. Which is ironic, because she grew up in a country where smiling at a stranger means something is wrong with you. Tatiana Koval spent 15 years as an HR consultant in Russia. When the war in Ukraine started, saying you were against it could put you in jail. Within days, she left the country with her husband and two sons to emigrate to Brazil. This is a conversation about happiness at work, life in Russia, and moving to Brazil, a place where strangers smile, hug, and say good morning in the elevator.…
From today forward, I am being the point guard. For years selling used machinery, I’ve constantly thought about how I need to delegate, how I need to stop trying to do everything. When I try to do too much, it’s a mess. I don’t do as good a job as I could have, and I get less done. One of my issues is my ego. My brain says: I’m the best deal maker. I’ve made a study of this deal. I know this person better than the others do. This should be my task because I know how to do…