At Automate 2024, Automation World met with Etienne Lacroix, founder and CEO of Vention, an automation hardware and software platform provider formed in 2016 to address automation issues for small to mid-sized manufacturers. While Vention targets smaller manufacturers with its end-to-end automation platform, the company also highlights its ease of automating to larger manufacturers as well who face their own automation challenges amid re-shoring initiatives and skilled industrial labor shortages.
Explaining Vention’s approach, Lacroix said, “Traditional automation components are very good, but they're very complex to integrate. That's why manufacturers often need a system integrator, which can double the total cost of an automated system. And if you're producing, say, only 10,000 widgets a year, it will be difficult to achieve a return on that investment in a reasonable timeframe. Our strategy to solve this is platforming.”
