And the Winners of the RUC Challenges Are…

The moment we've all been waiting for has arrived! The judges have announced the winners of the sales and technical challenges. Here's what our two teams did to win their prizes.

It's all over! The technical challenge is wrapped up and the sales challenge is becoming a distant memory. Well, not that distant… we still have to announce the winners.

Here are the two winning teams of our sales challenge and technical challenge.

Winners of the Sales Challenge: Team 10

Yesterday, the sales teams pitched their team's solution to a panel of judges. You can read all about the sales challenge in last night's post.

Well, the results are in and the winning team is Team 10, named the New Advanced Forward Thinking Applications company.

Their pitch impressed all five of the judges because it really connected with the customer's needs rather than putting on a show.

How Team 10 aced the challenge

The goal of the sales competition was to convince the customers to buy their team's robotic solution. In this case, the "customers" were our panel of five judges. This meant that the teams had to meet the needs of those customers.

The way that we could tell if a team had met that goal was if it achieved the most Product Orders (i.e. the most number of judges who said that they would buy the team's robotic solution). As there were 5 judges, the maximum number of Product Orders any team could achieve was 5.

There were 3 teams which achieved 5 Product Orders.

So, what made Team 10's entry that little bit better?

Why did they win when the other teams also met the challenge goals?

Here's why the judges picked Team 10 over the competition:

• They received the commitment — The mark of a great sales pitch is when you actually get the person to commit to purchasing your solution during the pitch. There should be no doubt or uncertainty over whether the sale will go ahead. Team 10 received a firm commitment from the customers by the end of their pitch.
• They engaged the client in conversation — When we think of a sales "pitch" we often think of a salesperson standing up and putting on a show about why their solution is better than any other. However, a great sales pitch should actually look more like a conversation. You need to find out what is important to the customer, try to truly understand their problems, and then demonstrate how your solution can help them to solve those problems. Team 10 did this very well.
• They demonstrated the impact of automating — One challenge which automation salespeople experience all the time in the field is convincing potential customers to move away from their manual processes. Not everyone is as convinced of the benefits of automation as everyone here at RUC. Team 10 did a great job of explaining the advantages of their robotic solution compared to the company's existing manual process.
• They managed time well — It's important to manage time when you're giving a presentation. In competitions like this one, keeping to time is important because there's a time limit on pitches. But, in the real world keeping to time is also important as you're often pitching to busy people. Team 10 managed their time well and got that all important commitment by the end of the pitch.
• They reassured the client — Clients are often uncertain about investing in a new solution, especially if they have never used robotics before in their business. Team 10 were very good at reassuring the clients and clearly demonstrating the gains they would experience by choosing their solution.

Well done Team 10!

Winners of the Technical Challenge: Team 8

And who were the winners of our marathon technical challenge?

The prize for most completed kits produced were Team 8, named Infinite Team. The partners in the team were: Vicosystem (Spain), Robotplus (Spain), HMI (France), and Revtech (Canada). Their Robotiq coach was Nicholas Francoeur.

No team managed to achieve the complete kit assembly. This meant that there was no no cycle time award. However, Team 8 managed to produce the most within the 24 hours out of all of the teams.

They won because they assembled all items except the pen. Their solution was very thorough since it involved 2 station, and they were the only team to achieve that.

We spoke to them once it was all over, and it sounds like they certainly had a busy night!

Many of the members of Team 8 didn't sleep all night (Team 10 didn't sleep either, clearly that Latin power is strong!)

At 2am pizza was brought for everyone in the challenge, plus emergency beer on the stage. And they all needed it!

Team 8 only achieved the USB key assembly and data recording 1 minute from the end of the challenge. Talk about a close shave!!

Here's their winning cell layout:

Well done Team 8!

And, I think all of our teams have won themselves a well-deserved rest after this thrilling Robotiq User Conference!