EP 7 — SAE's Jake Bodily on Why Speed Requirements Can Kill Tech Adoption Despite Benefits

Jake Bodily, who was SAE's first Director of Business Development in 30 years, walks through why 12 collaborative robots earned him Global Salesman recognition in 2018, then got donated to education within months. The reason was that inherent speed limitations from safety protocols created throughput bottlenecks worse than manual processes. Jake explains SAE's deliberate approach to technology adoption, why his test for automation success is whether it spreads through operations, and how proven implementations enabled one customer to compress their 24-year automation roadmap into 4 years.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:26 Jake's journey from FANUC to SAE
02:03 High-accuracy airframe drilling robots at Hill Air Force Base
02:44 Understanding six-axis robotic arms
04:02 Lessons from FANUC: innovate or evaporate
06:18 SAE's history and confidential aerospace projects
07:00 Stratosphere ride installations in Las Vegas
08:20 Utah's aerospace ecosystem and infrastructure
10:00 AI adoption approach and technology skepticism
10:41 SAE's business model: 30 years without business development
11:53 Collaborative robot limitations and the cobot failure case
14:09 Overcoming manufacturer resistance to automation
15:25 Barriers to automation implementation
16:08 Explaining six-axis robot mechanics
16:39 F-16 wing box fabrication time reduction
18:15 SAE's innovation approach and pet projects
19:09 Building SAE's business development function
20:14 Space propulsion and satellite manufacturing
20:42 5-year growth targets for aerospace
21:46 Vision system technology advances