Productivity, or lack thereof, is often the key concern for those looking to automate their end-of-line operations. What buyers don’t often know, however, is that peak productivity means more than machine functionality alone.
Vention’s Content Editor Mariah Moore sat down with Senior Robotics Segment Manager Carl Hajal to uncover why support, future planning, and building meaningful automation partnerships are key to maintaining a productive end-of-line. Plus, they detail which new features Vention is releasing at Pack Expo 2026.
This article has been edited for brevity. Watch the full conversation with Carl Hajal here.
Carl Hajal is the Senior Segment Manager for Robotics at Vention, where he owns product management for the company’s robotics and MachineAnalytics portfolios. With a Master’s Degree in Aerospace - Automation and Control, he develops product strategies to turn today’s manufacturing needs into advanced automation software made easier to program, operate, monitor, and support. Carl works with various Vention departments, managing the latest industrial automation systems across multiple robot platforms.
Vention: Would love to start out with the first launch, Carl. Why should buyers care about palletizer commissioning day, month 18, and year five equally?
Carl Hajal
“I like to say that the machine on commissioning day is going to have its best day. You have the integration engineers there, everyone is looking at the machine, everyone’s monitoring every little detail, and the machine performs well.
At month 18, that full team is not there. Your production line and your operators have likely changed. At year five, it’s changed even more. And that’s why you have to evaluate the lifetime or the ROI of your machine. You didn’t buy it for just one day. You’re buying for the future, and that’s the value you’re paying for. That’s why every stage matters.
As a plant manager, I’d need to account for scaling as well. If you change the scope down the line, you need to consider if your automation partner is capable of adapting and helping that transition.”
Vention: And when machine downtime and slow support eat into that project’s ROI, what does that look like?
Carl Hajal
“You know, issues and downtime will happen. The first line of defense when a machine is down is to look at the machine itself, right? And the key element is having software that actually tells you what’s going on with it. At Vention, our philosophy is providing software capable of telling you exactly what’s going on and where.
The second line of defense is obviously the support that your partner provides. Creating an experience where operators can get support very quickly when they’re blocked is important. And I think it’s one of the last things that people think about during evaluation.
So when downtime arrives, if you don’t have the tools, the software, the support, at the end of the day, operators have to find workarounds. This is where your ROI disappears. When they’re pivoting to palletizing by hand, the metrics go down. That’s the whole point of this machine is to produce, not to have it to have engineers and operators work around it.”
Vention: Would love to lean into that support piece. What does conventional support look like on factory floors?
Carl Hajal
“Traditionally, when your machine is down, you call your integrator and your partner who deployed the machine. And if they don’t have remote access, they’ll have to come in person. Sometimes that takes 24 to 48 hours.
During that time, the downtime is costing you money. By the time you have the integrator on site, it’s already a couple thousand dollars that you’ve spent.
What we have seen is when you’re dealing with different vendors, and you’re integrating multiple equipment pieces together, there’s a lot of finger-pointing that happens. That integrator is dealing with multiple suppliers, and that by nature causes support to take longer, increasing total spend.”
Vention: So when we’re talking about automation vendors and suppliers versus partners, what is the difference when it comes to keeping uptime stable?
Carl Hajal
“With Vention, we’ve heard so many stories of customers enjoying having one partnership and one point of contact. As a partner, we design the machine, can access the data, and provide software that is easily used by operators.
When it comes to increasing uptime, users can reduce the number of questions asked and eliminate the back-and-forth when they have one partner. A partner is also accountable for the outcome of the machine, for the throughput. A vendor of equipment, on the other hand, will say, ‘Okay, you’re gonna use our equipment as part of your line, but you’re responsible for the outcome and troubleshooting.’”
Vention: So Vention is an end-to-end partner, and we can access their data with consent. What kinds of questions can a plant manager answer with Vention’s MachineAnalytics that they couldn’t before?
Carl Hajal
“It’s one thing to surface data in a dashboard, but it’s another to understand the why. Why is the machine off? What is this data good for? So today, what we’re doing specifically for palletizers is exposing the main downtime data, including how long it was down, how long you were waiting for boxes, how long the pallet was waiting for clearance, how much time you’re running in reduced mode, and more.
That’s what the customer is going to look at. If everything’s good, everything’s good. But if something is off, what’s the culprit? That’s the key point that we focus on with MachineAnalytics.”
Vention: Can you tell us a little bit more about what we’re bringing to Pack Expo 2026?
Carl Hajal
“So we are introducing the pre-built template for the palletizer MachineApp, and it covers three aspects. Customers will have visibility over which pallet is running, the current skew, and the box-per-minute rate.
We’re also introducing a performance section, where users track the machine, a representation of your OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), and how much time your robot is spending running while it’s actually on. Those dashboards live in the cloud, and at Pack Expo, we’re bringing it to your pendant so operators can see it from both places.”
Vention: At Pack Expo, we’re also announcing that Remote Support is now 24/7. Can you tell us a little about the why, Carl?
Carl Hajal
“Absolutely. With Remote Support, on any Vention machine, you have a button on the pendant. You click that button, and you get on a video call with our integration engineering team within 10 minutes. We guarantee it.
And now, we’re augmenting this to 24/7. The night shifts usually have fewer maintenance people present. They have to be a little bit more autonomous. 24/7 gives assurance and peace of mind for our users. They know their partner, Vention, can be present at night. Users can think, ‘They’re the expert on this machine. They know it inside and out, and they train my operators. So I’m gonna count on them.’”
Vention: And what’s one thing that you think every Pack Expo visitor should know about keeping the fleet productive?
Carl Hajal
“Maybe I’ll give you three quick points.
When you’re buying your machine, don’t think just about commissioning day. Think about longevity, and whether or not the software is designed for your operators to operate it successfully.
It’s also important that the software surfaces the “why” in your performance data. The last thing is to go with partners that design machines with people in mind. We are in an era where AI is driving a lot of automation. We think AI is important at Vention too, but it’s important to remember the people. That’s truly your measure of success on a machine.”
Learn more about Vention’s PACK EXPO International 2026 releases.
