The Autonomous Mobile Fabricator operates as a ground-level AGV or mounts directly onto any Genie MEWP platform. | Source: Raise Robotics
Most autonomous systems work in the lab and stall in the field. An early-stage construction robot reaches a customer at roughly 80% of the capability that the customer needs. Whether that program crosses to 120% is not a hardware problem; it’s a leadership decision. Where do you spend finite engineering capacity, and where do you build operator discipline instead?
At RoboBusiness 2026, Kenrick Tjandra, who leads robotics deployment at Raise Robotics, will talk about “Closing the Capability Gap: A Leadership Framework for Scaling Field Robotics.” RoboBusiness takes place Oct. 20 and 21 in Santa Clara, Calif. The session will start at 1:15 p.m. 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 across eight states, as well as over 4,528 robot-hours, with zero safety incidents.
From that record, Tjandra has built a repeatable decision framework, now peer-reviewed by Project Production Institute, which answers the question every scaling robotics team faces: Do you build the product fix, or write the operator playbook?
Kenrick will ground his talk in two failures that shaped the framework, then walk through the framework:
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- Sampling bias: Your first three sites don’t represent your next 30.
- Margin stacking: Independently-defensible tolerances consume each other in series (truck → forklift → hoist → doorway → floor) until a comfortable margin is gone.
- The framework itself: It includes a resource taxonomy, a three-tier build-vs-workaround model, and a capability-envelope-versus-observed- variance method for anticipating where a system breaks next.
Attendees leave with a decision rule for allocating engineering capacity, a vocabulary for two hidden failure modes, and the pre-mobilization gates that keep field programs from stalling; the discipline that separates a demo from a system that scales.
Meet Kenrick Tjandra
Tjandra leads robotics deployment at Raise Robotics. Raise is U.S. company with a commercial record of autonomous robots working at the leading edge of buildings under construction. He directed deployment across 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 built the operator-training curriculum adopted by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades and taught across more than 100 training centers in the U.S. and Canada.
Kenrick holds an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon and was an invited speaker at ICRA 2026 and Stanford.
Register now for RoboBusiness
RoboBusiness 2026 is the leading event for commercial robotics developers. Attendees will gain the latest insights from experts in robotics and AI on cutting-edge research; industry trends; and innovative applications in sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, logistics, and more.
The show also features a number of networking opportunities to give attendees a chance to connect with other experts in the industry.
Buy your full conference pass and gain full access to all keynotes, technical sessions, networking receptions, and special events. Discounts are also available for academia, associations, and corporate groups. Please email events[at]arrowfly.com for more details about our discount programs.
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