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Diane Abruzzini Riggs, the Chief Operating Officer of Rigorous, brings a wealth of diverse expertise cultivated through various roles across industries. Currently steering operations at Rigorous, a pioneering firm specializing in robotic solutions for manufacturing and agriculture, Diane’s strategic acumen and operational finesse drive the company’s innovation and growth.
With a rich professional journey, Diane’s career trajectory has been marked by impactful roles. From serving as a Core Advisor and Workshop Instructor at the Center for Women & Enterprise to assuming the mantle of Managing Director at Mind Frame, they’ve demonstrated exceptional leadership and proficiency. Their journey encompasses dynamic stints, including Director of Marketing at VENTURE.co and Social Venture Business Advisor at Gold Beet Ventures, showcasing a multifaceted skill set honed through hands-on experience. Armed with a BA in Anthropology from Skidmore College and an MBA in Sustainable Entrepreneurship from the University of Vermont, Diane’s commitment to sustainable practices and entrepreneurial ethos propels them as a driving force in the business landscape. Coupled with certifications in Learning SOLIDWORKS and Securities Industry Essentials, Diane embodies a blend of expertise and vision, shaping industries with innovation and purpose.
Rigorous, founded in 2020 by Colin Riggs and Diane Abruzzini, is dedicated to helping smaller companies harness the efficiency benefits of automation through advanced software controls for industrial robotics. With a focus on empowering domestic manufacturers to stay competitive in the global economy, Rigorous replaces dangerous, repetitive, and hard-to-fill roles with user-friendly robots, expanding access to automation. Committed to innovation, high standards, and impactful solutions, the Rigorous team applies engineering methodologies to industrial system design, prioritizing value and human-centricity in all endeavors.
Chris Santomassimo: So welcome back to the Think Factory podcast. And I’m your host, Chris Santomassimo from OGC Solutions. And of course we power the Think Factory podcast and I’m really excited to be here today with Diane Abruzzini Riggs who is the Chief Operating Officer from Rigorous Technology. Welcome to the podcast.
Diane Riggs: Thanks for having me, Chris. Great to be here.
Chris Santomassimo: So one of the reasons that I wanted to introduce Diane and Rigorous Technology is the fact that they are experts in creating and designing systems to do what everybody in the print and other manufacturing spaces are talking about, which is automation. You know, how do we get our plants where we’re manufacturing everything from corrugated to other types of packaging or printing? Just about everything. You know, those folks are constantly talking about how to tweak the system and make it more efficient and rely a little bit less on labor. And so and labor being one of the issues that we’ve seen some issues with, of course, since since COVID 19. So Diane is doing exactly that kind of work. And I thought, let’s hear about rigorous technology and what the company is doing for its customers and and learn a little bit more about about robotics in particular.
Diane Riggs: The perfect opportunity to share a little bit about what we’ve been working on and also hear your thoughts on it and also where you see the industry moving in the future.
Chris Santomassimo: Well, you know, and I really want to learn about, you know, the company in the background, but I’ll answer your your question that you just raised there is that, you know, labor that is when I talk about labor, it’s good personnel to run packaging companies, run printing companies, other manufacturing environments. And I think it’s fair to say before COVID 19, it was not so easy to find the right folks for some reason. And we know some of the reasons, and I shouldn’t make a mystery out of it, but COVID 19 accentuated that problem. So. You may have a core of really solid folks, but you want to do more of your business. And if you’re relying on labor and the availability enough of enough hands, human hands, you’re going to be limited as to how you can scale your business and grow. And so virtually everybody at trade shows in all of those industries talk about how can I automate and how can I make my business more efficient? So that’s really where it comes from. You know, it’s it’s that that burning question of how do I do more with, you know, with as many people. In some cases, a few less or a few fewer people. So that’s really where it all comes from. It’s really just a basic need to keep the business going and, you know, develop the people that you have, maybe put them in other positions, give them new opportunities, and take some of the repetitive work out of the manufacturing process.
Diane Riggs: Absolutely, yeah. A lot of industrial robotics companies really focus on dull, dirty and dangerous tasks as write for automation. And we especially we really see robotics and automation as the force multiplier for human ingenuity, not necessarily a replacement. So there will be specific tasks on a factory floor, heavy lifting, a lot of rotation, a lot of repetition, things that, you know aren’t inherently great for the human body or for our creative capacity. And those are the areas that one often have the best return on investment, because it’s a straightforward practice that lends well to machines but to it gets a lot of buy in from the rest of the staff because it’s not necessarily replacing a specific number of jobs on your floor, but it’s replacing the need to do specific tasks and especially in heavy lifting tasks, those are often shared by multiple people rather than one person’s job, day in and day out So, for example, one of the jobs that we’ll likely talk about today, operators were lifting £8,000 every hour. And so that is a really easy place for the management and operations to say, hey, I wonder if a machine could do it. But it’s also a place where all of the operators, when they see a machine come in, they were excited about it because they knew that they would be freed up to do other activities that were better uses of their creative energy.
Chris Santomassimo: If you’re taking £8,000 of lifting per hour out of the human the human element, I would think just as a matter of risk management, you’re also reducing the number of times that people will get injured in the process.
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