The company supplies robots to many commercial businesses.
SOUTHLAKE, Texas — When you serve 700 meals a day, like chef Jay Barban of Town Village Crossing independent living in Arlington, you need all the help you can get. Help that’s getting harder to find.
That’s why the two newest members of the team have been game-changers.
“Yeah, we can’t do this job without them anymore,” Barban said.
Chef Barban says they never complain, never call out sick and never cease to amaze.
They’re Bonni and Gizmo, robotic servers.
Bonni and Gizmo, named by the facility’s residents, came from RobotLAB in Southlake, one of the top robotics companies in the country.
“Robots are a tool and we put the tools to work for us,” said RobotLAB founder and CEO Elad Inbar.
Inbar says many of the robots do work that, to humans, seems mundane, like cleaning or delivery. They’re jobs that are increasingly hard to fill or jobs that until recently were done by immigrants who now fear deportation.
In fact, Inbar says just in the past few weeks, interest in RobotLAB has grown 300%, from businesses desperate for help.
“They can help where we basically can’t find people anymore,” Inbar said.
Inbar and his team supply the robots, then integrate them and keep them working. They’re in such demand, that RobotLAB’s 31 locations may grow to 100 by the end of the year.
Although interest in robots is at an all-time high, so is doubt. Inbar says more than anything, people fear losing a workforce to automation. However, he says robots are a resource, not a replacement.
“When we lost the horse and buggy to cars, we lost some jobs,” he said. “There were pooper scoopers but the people wanted a different position which is much better.”
Back then, Inbar says technology created better jobs like mechanics, engineers and designers, allowing people to progress and be more efficient.
Chef Barban is seeing that play out in his own kitchen. By freeing his staff of tedious tasks, they’re able to utilize uniquely human skills like empathy and compassion.
“They spend more time in the dining room and create a better dining experience for the residents,” Barban said. “It doesn’t replace people,” said Inbar. “It just makes the people more effective, more productive.”
In other words, technology can make some people super-human.
