Six Facilities, Three Countries, One Culture w/ Darragh de Stonndún

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Robots rarely break. Vision systems keep getting smarter. In automation, the technology has gotten so good that it’s no longer what separates one company from another. Darragh de Stonndún, CEO of Automated Industrial Robotics, will tell you what does: the people and the culture behind it. In this episode, we unpack how he built AIR across six facilities in the US, UK and Ireland by evaluating every acquisition on culture first and walking away from impressive companies when the fit wasn’t right. You’ll hear what he looks for in a capital partner beyond the capital itself, how he gets a customer the identical experience no matter which facility touches the project and why he assembles the best experts across the whole company rather than handing the work to the nearest plant. We’ll also get into where he expects AI to earn its keep in manufacturing, and the line he draws between using a new tool to do better work and using it as a shortcut.