The complexity of the robots on display at Wednesday’s grand opening of the Alabama Robotics Technology Center was remarkable, but barely matched the complexity of negotiations that got all the robot vendors to work together.

The novelty of the robotics park — and its benefit to industries worldwide — is in large part a result of its creators’ success in breaking down the barriers between vendors.

“It’s like the treaty after World War II,” said Ken Callahan of Decatur-based Southern Controls Inc. “It’s the first time you’ve seen every enemy in the industry work together.”

That success changes an industrial environment that previously forced companies to pick one brand of robot.

Even if that brand was not ideal for all of a plant’s functions, the need for the robots to communicate with each other prevented industries from a mix-and-match approach on assembly lines.

Enter Art Meadows of Alabama Industrial Development Training Institute.

“Kuka’s probably the best overall general robot,” Meadows said, pointing at the constantly moving contraption Wednesday at the training center. “Motoman, if I want to weld something, that’s going to be my robot,” he said, pointing at another. “If I’m doing material handling, I want a Fanuc.”

The problem was getting the various brands of robots — developed in an environment that rewarded robotics isolationism — to communicate with each other. The Alabama Robotics Technology Park is unique in its ability to accomplish the feat.

OTC Robotics had no programming platform that could network with other robots, until it entered the robotics park. Now, recognizing the benefits of robotic coordination, it has developed a program that works on a common platform. Already, representatives of competing robot vendors — seeing the marketing benefits of cooperation — are developing joint products. That’s not just new to Alabama. It’s new to the world.

Meadows has spent countless hours trying to fulfill Gov. Bob Riley’s vision for the robotics park, but he still grimaces at the hardest part: getting the robotics vendors into a single room with Riley.

“They had never gotten in the same room with a competitor, and they didn’t even want their competitors seeing them go into a room,” Meadows said, because of their obsession with secrecy.

How did he drag them to the party?

“I begged,” he said with a laugh. “I said, ‘This is what we’re going to do. We want you to be a part of it. Let me know if you don’t want to be a part of it, because we’re going to find somebody else. We’re going to have enough to fill this building up.”

What makes the robotics park both unique and sustainable is that it is more than a training facility. It is a “permanent technology fair,” as described by Troy Gurkin, Birmingham district manager for Lincoln Electric, which specializes in robotics-based welding.

“This is a huge opportunity for us to show our latest and greatest products,” Gurkin said.

The benefit to robotics vendors is already apparent.

“We had a brand new company in Alabama come in the other day,” Meadows said, “and say, ‘I like that robot. Can we get that one?’ ”

Craig Waldron of Ohio-based SAS Automation elaborated on the benefit to robotics vendors.

Flexibility

SAS builds end-of-arm tooling for robots. Sometimes it’s a claw, sometimes a vacuum, but it’s specific to the assembly plant. The SAS business model is to give manufacturer the flexibility to design the tool that it needs for its assembly line.

The problem is that employees at a particular plant may have no idea how to assemble the end-of-arm part they need. For SAS, the robotics park is a solution. Employees from Decatur and elsewhere can train at the robotics park.

“They’ll go through the training and say, ‘We can do this,’ ” said Waldron. Then, he is confident, their employers will buy SAS parts.

Meadows illustrated another advantage of the robotics center for companies that build components for robots.

“SAS said, ‘Can we put a gripper on that one (the most expensive robot at the park) and teach a class on it?’ I said sure.”

That synergy between robotics suppliers was unrecognized, even shunned, before the robotics park came into existence. Now Kuka Robotics is seeing the advantage of showing its product with SAS grippers.

A similar incentive pushes the vendors to offer excellent training — some have committed employees to the facility for as many as five years — at the park.

“We’re offering them a place to train,” Meadows said. “They can train two weeks out of the month, their own classes. And then they’re going to be training two weeks out of the month for us.”

What leaves Meadows and the many vendor representatives awestruck, however, is the extent to which the robotics park is transforming and improving the robotics industry.

“The integration is huge,” Meadows said. “Not only are they together in one building, they can interface with each other. We can network this one to that one, or network all of them together. So a Toyota won’t have to reinvent the wheel.”

Meadows and Riley forced a cooperative philosophy on the robot builders. Birmingham-based Innovation Inc. provided the programming needed to facilitate the cooperation.

The centerpiece of Phase 1 of the robotics park is an assembly line with multiple robots of different brands. Innovation’s Jeff Johnson — working on a computer, not in Riley’s board room — forced the robots to talk to each other.

“We made the software accommodate the differences between each vendor,” Johnson said. “What’s great about this place is you can see them operate and work with them. You can work with multiple vendors. It’s unheard of. It’s the ultimate trade show.”

In the past, Johnson said, it was rare for employees at sophisticated manufacturers to have worked with the robots they would have to operate or maintain.

“They hadn’t even seen these things,” Johnson said of the robotics center’s future students. “Now they will know what to expect. It takes the learning curve way down. I think this will work.”