Raise Robotics to discuss scaling robots in the field at RoboBusiness
The Autonomous Mobile Fabricator operates as a ground-level AGV or mounts directly to any Genie MEWP platform. | Source: Raise Robotics
Most autonomous systems work in the laboratory and stop in the field. An early-stage construction robot reaches a customer with about 80% of the capacity the customer needs. If the program reaches 120% it is not a hardware problem; it’s a leadership decision. Where do you spend finite engineering capacity and where do you build operator discipline?
At RoboBusiness 2026, Kenrick Tjandra, who leads robotics implementation at Raise Robotics, will speak on “Closing the Capability Gap: A Leadership Framework for Scaling Robotics in the Field.” RoboBusiness will take place on October 20 and 21 in Santa Clara, California. The session will begin at 1:15pm ET on the first day of the show.
Raise Robotics holds the U.S. commercial record for autonomous robots installing building envelopes at the leading edge of buildings under construction. The San Francisco-based company has completed 10 projects in eight states, as well as more than 4,528 hours of robot work, without any safety incidents.
From that record, Tjandra built a repeatable decision framework, now peer-reviewed by the Project Production Institute, that answers the question every scale robotics team faces: Do you build the product fix or write the operator playbook?
Kenrick will base his talk on two failures that shaped the framework, then examine the framework:
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- Sampling bias: Your first three sites don’t represent your next 30.
- Margin stacking: Independently defensible tolerances wear each other out in series (truck → forklift → lift → door → floor) until a comfortable margin is eliminated.
- The painting itself: It includes a resource taxonomy, a three-level build-vs-workaround model, and a capacity-envelope-versus-observed-variance method for anticipating where a system will break next.
Participants walk away with a decision rule for allocating engineering capacity, a vocabulary for two hidden failure modes, and pre-mobilization gates that keep field programs from stalling; the discipline that separates a demo from a scalable system.
Meet Kenrick Tjandra
Tjandra leads robotics implementation at Raise Robotics. Raise is a US company with a commercial record of autonomous robots working on the cutting edge of buildings under construction. He led implementation on 10 commercial projects in eight states.
Tjandra also authored the company’s peer-reviewed decision framework for scaling early-stage robotics (Project Production Institute, 2026). He created the operator training program adopted by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades and has taught at more than 100 training centers in the United States and Canada.
Kenrick holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon and has been an invited speaker at ICRA 2026 and Stanford.
Register now for RoboBusiness
RoboBusiness 2026 is the leading event for commercial robotics developers. Participants will gain the latest insights from robotics and AI experts on cutting-edge research; industry trends; and innovative applications in industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, logistics and more.
The show also offers a number of networking opportunities to give attendees the chance to network with other industry experts.
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