Nexterity wants to automate the hard, dangerous part of pipefitting

Nexterity 旨在实现管道安装中艰苦且危险环节的自动化

Lindsey Elliott is big into bolts. At last year’s Bolting Symposium — the 13th annual — she said the highlight was playing “Bolting Bingo” against the many self-proclaimed “torque dorks” who were in the room. A former engineer and planner at ExxonMobil, Elliott has spent years thinking about how to improve the infrastructure that moves oil, gas, and petrochemicals. Bolts are what she landed on. Lindsey Elliott 对螺栓情有独钟。在去年举办的第 13 届年度螺栓研讨会上，她说最精彩的部分是与现场许多自称“扭矩极客”（torque dorks）的人一起玩“螺栓宾果”游戏。作为埃克森美孚的前工程师和规划师，Elliott 多年来一直在思考如何改善输送石油、天然气和石化产品的基础设施，而她最终锁定的目标就是螺栓。

Specifically, the bolts that connect sections of pipe (technically called “bolted flange joints”). These bolts require hard, physical work to loosen and tighten, and are the source of many pipefitters’ injuries. Like many trade industries, there’s also a labor shortage. “Those people get really tired when they’re asked to work 12 hours a day for three months in a row,” she told TechCrunch. “I’ve talked to pipefitters across the U.S. across Canada, and just repeatedly have been told North American pipefitting productivity is notoriously low.” 具体来说，就是连接管道各部分的螺栓（专业术语称为“螺栓法兰连接”）。这些螺栓的松紧需要繁重的体力劳动，也是许多管道工受伤的根源。像许多行业一样，该领域也面临劳动力短缺的问题。“当人们被要求连续三个月每天工作 12 小时时，他们会感到非常疲惫，”她告诉 TechCrunch。“我与美国和加拿大的管道工交谈过，他们反复告诉我，北美管道安装的生产力低得惊人。”

The solution Elliott came up with at her startup Nexterity, which is one of the Startup Battlefield 200 selected to participate in TechCrunch Disrupt, is a remote-controlled robot that can handle this part of the job. It’s the kind of idea that could fundamentally change this particular blue-collar job if widely adopted, making the workers safer and more productive. Think: more dork, less torque. Elliott 在她的初创公司 Nexterity（入选 TechCrunch Disrupt “Startup Battlefield 200” 榜单之一）提出的解决方案是一款可以处理这项工作的遥控机器人。如果得到广泛应用，这种想法可能会从根本上改变这一蓝领工作，使工人们更安全、更高效。简单来说：多一点“极客”智慧，少一点体力扭矩。

The robot comes in two main pieces that fit around a pipe. Powered by batteries, the robot can slide across the pipe once it’s attached and quickly loosen and tighten four bolts at a time. Elliott said Nexterity has developed a few different configurations of the robot to fit different standard pipe sizes, but they’re all small enough to fit in a Pelican case and be carried by a single worker. That makes them easy to deploy to new sites — flexibility that is crucial to Nexterity’s business model of treating the robot like rental construction equipment. 该机器人由两个主要部件组成，可以安装在管道周围。机器人由电池供电，安装后可以在管道上滑动，并能同时快速松开或拧紧四个螺栓。Elliott 表示，Nexterity 已经开发了几种不同配置的机器人以适应各种标准管道尺寸，但它们都足够小，可以装入一个派力肯（Pelican）防护箱中，并由一名工人携带。这使得它们易于部署到新的工作现场——这种灵活性对于 Nexterity 将机器人视为租赁建筑设备的商业模式至关重要。

Elliott said she arrived at this particular design as a result of conversations she’s had over the last few years — not just at the Bolting Symposium, but also with members of the Pressure Vessels & Piping Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. “What I learned from the people, the torque dorks per se,” she said, “is that 80% of our pipes are between two to eight inches in diameter, or what they call NPS2 to NPS8. And so when you have that much repeatability, you have a fantastic candidate for automation.” Elliott 说，她之所以能得出这个特定的设计，是过去几年与人交流的结果——不仅是在螺栓研讨会上，还包括与美国机械工程师学会压力容器与管道分会的成员交流。“我从那些人，也就是所谓的‘扭矩极客’那里了解到，”她说，“我们 80% 的管道直径在 2 到 8 英寸之间，也就是他们所说的 NPS2 到 NPS8。因此，当你拥有如此高的可重复性时，它就是自动化的绝佳候选对象。”

It’s a pretty straightforward idea, but one that Elliott believes has a lot of upside. “I think it would shock a lot of people just how big this market is,” she said. “I mean, day to day, most of us don’t think about piping infrastructure, but even water, wastewater, water treatment, food and beverage, mining, nuclear, any kind of green and sustainable manufacturing facility — they all use the same kind of piping.” 这是一个非常直观的想法，但 Elliott 认为它具有巨大的上升空间。“我认为这个市场规模之大会让很多人感到震惊，”她说。“我的意思是，在日常生活中，我们大多数人不会去想管道基础设施，但无论是水、废水、水处理、食品饮料、采矿、核能，还是任何类型的绿色可持续制造设施，它们使用的都是同一种管道。”