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How a Nashville robotics startup is quietly powering the auto supply chain

Originally published in The Tennessean

Written by: Stuart Dyos

Key Points

• Hirebotics, a Nashville robotics startup, offers cobots designed to simplify automation for auto industry suppliers.
• These cobots, controlled via smartphone app, require no specialized training and perform tasks like welding and cutting.
• Hirebotics’ cobots have helped companies like Advanta increase production output significantly, addressing labor shortages and rising demand.

While flashy electric vehicle launches and gigafactory unveilings dominate headlines, a Nashville robotics startup is quietly reshaping automation for the auto industry’s overlooked backbone — its vast network of suppliers.

As labor shortages and rising demand constrict second- and third-tier auto suppliers, Hirebotics is offering a scalable solution: out-of-the-box collaborative robots — cobots — that simplify automation without the need for specialized training.

By designing cobots that weld, cut and offer guidance through a smartphone app, the Nashville-based startup is helping these smaller manufacturers stay competitive in an industry that’s driven by deadlines.

Within an industry obsessed with specialization and complexity, Hirebotics is betting on simplicity. Founded in 2016, the company builds cobots designed to work safely alongside humans on factory floors. Cobots can be operated and troubleshot through a smartphone app, no programming experience needed.

“We really aim to empower the welder, so we don’t think about our user as a robot programmer,” said cofounder and CEO Rob Goldiez. “We think about our user as the welder, the tradesman. That drives us a bit differently in terms of how we develop the product.”

Hirebotics’ cobots are used for metal fabrication tasks like welding and plasma cutting. While automation often carries a steep learning curve — especially for older workers — the company’s mobile-first design and built-in teaching tools help bridge that gap.

The average age of a welder is roughly 50 years old, Goldiez said, “but you hand them an iPad or an iPhone” and “they know how to use that because they use that to Facetime with their kids or text their spouse.”

By leveling the playing field, Hirebotics combines AI-driven customer support with live human chat, all within its mobile platform that lets users access programming tools, tutorials and tips.

“Sometimes people are a little embarrassed if they don’t know how to do something so they don’t want to go ask their supervisor or they don’t want to ask the engineer that, you know, bought the damn piece of equipment for them,” Goldiez said.

“There’s just a lower barrier when they can just ask us directly and get a response back,” he added.

Hirebotics’ business strategy positions itself as a product rather than a customizable option, which is key for scalability and appeal to small-to-midsized manufacturers.

Many companies within the industrial automation space build robots as specialized one-off systems. Hirebotics takes a more generic approach emphasizing a one-size-fits-all model.

“What’s unique about what we do is we build a product, and a lot of times in automation, things are projects. The distinction being, when companies think about projects, you end up getting customer solutions that are often expensive (and) hard to support,” Goldiez said. “You become reliant on the integrator that put it in.”

Robots help fill labor shortage

Hirebotics doesn’t deal with blueprints or manufacturing specificities. Instead the company builds standardized welding and cutting systems, complete with cobots, software and accessories, that’s ready to ship from its warehouse.

“We sell a product that ships within a day of when we get an order and so we build it, and we put it in stock,” Goldiez said.

The philosophy has resonated with smaller suppliers fighting to stay competitive amid labor shortages and rising demand.

While Hirebotics’ clients in the tier-one space include John Deere and Caterpillar, the company doesn’t work with major car manufacturers like Nissan or Toyota, but rather the smaller players that keep the auto industry’s supply chain running.

One customer is Advanta, an automotive supplier with plants in South Carolina and Michigan. Advanta manufactures protective cargo material used in assembly and paint lines for major car companies. Notably, the company manufactured the cargo for the doors to Tesla’s Cybertruck.

According to Hirebotics’s cofounder and COO Matt Bush, Advanta produces and ships up to 1,000 units at time. As market share declined in the Southeast during the pandemic, Advanta struggled to hire and retain workers. The company then decided to pivot into automation.

“They’ve really leaned into the cobots because of the ability to get more business and not have to try and go hire more people,” Bush said.

Advanta now leverages 20 robots, boosting its production output by 400% compared to when the work was done solely by humans.

“We went from 25 parts to 100 parts a day within a matter of just a few hours after we set up the first unit,” said Mark Moye, plant manager at Advanta Southeast, in a case study. Advanta’s production quadrupled when implementing the robots.

“Some of that comes from welding a little bit faster. On average we’re welding probably 50% faster than humans do today,” Bush said. “It comes from a decrease in lost motion.”

Everything from repositioning a part, to lifting the welding mask, to even wiping sweat from a welder’s eyebrow is precious seconds lost in productivity, he said.

“The robot just goes from here to there. It doesn’t care. He’s not going to slow down,” Bush added.

Rather than replace workers, Hirebotics’s cobots are designed to complement and assist in the welding process.

“Let the cobot do the monotonous task of welding the eight-foot-long seam that is just so boring to weld, and let the humans do the fit up and then weld out all the pieces of it that are a little more complicated,” Bush said. “Let the robot do what it does best, let the humans do what they do best and really utilize both of them to the best of their abilities.”

just so boring to weld, and let the humans do the fit up and then weld out all the pieces of it that are a little more complicated,” Bush said. “Let the robot do what it does best, let the humans do what they do best and really utilize both of them to the best of their abilities.”