MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Better Tubes for Robotics-Driven Manufacturing
Kevin McNeil believes better structural tubing can unlock faster, more efficient automation—and help smaller manufacturers compete in a robotics-driven future.
Written by Cathy Cecere
Tubes are assembled into an 8-foot-long robotic tool, demonstrating the extended reach enabled by the breakthrough tube structure. Photo: Kevin McNeil
AFTER WORKING AT PROCTER & GAMBLE for more than four decades, Kevin McNeil launched a startup to turn his materials-and-manufacturing expertise into a new role for structural tubing. “You know, I just don’t sit around very well,” admitted the inventor whose name is on 124 U.S. patents. “I’m antsy. I want to be doing stuff. I just like to be working on things and getting things done.”
McNeil is very much like the environment that shaped his career. The president of Cincinnati-area startup Techreo spent his life’s work in manufacturing, where the machines are huge, run fast, and never stop. “You’re not allowed to ever shut down, or you are going to get strung up,” he explained.
An Engineering Second Act
McNeil earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan State, and his experience includes product development, process and equipment innovation, and development of intellectual property. Over the course of that career, he learned how to make complex systems run reliably at industrial scale.
He has also learned how to recognize when a better answer might be hiding inside an old solution. That way of thinking now drives Techreo.
For McNeil, who has been a member of ASME since 2018, stepping into a second career feeds into his “give it a shot” mentality. Yes, he is able to use and add to his knowledge and experience, but there are always naysayers. “And I’m like, we can make this work. Let’s go for it,” McNeil said. “I know it might not work. I’m like, well, that’s what makes it fun.”
McNeil and his team have developed proprietary tubular structures designed to outperform traditional aluminum components in demanding applications. Depending on the configuration, the company’s tubes are up to 50 percent lighter than aluminum, show 20 percent to 35 percent less axial deflection, and deliver built-in vibration damping that can be 50 times faster.
Kevin McNeil works with a collaborative robot to fine-tune the system for the task at hand. Photo: Kevin McNeil
The robotic tool is equipped with pneumatic grippers designed to pick and place heavy-duty payloads. Photo: Kevin McNeil
A tube clamp is positioned for insertion before the adhesive begins to set. Photo: Kevin McNeil
Rethinking the Tube
The company’s early focus is robotic end-of-arm tooling, where lower weight, higher stiffness, and faster settling time can improve speed, accuracy, and throughput. McNeil’s path to the technology was not a straight one.
At Procter & Gamble some of his workdays were dedicated to embossing technology, and he was intrigued with finding a better way to manufacture rolls using the technology in paper products. That search led him into new ways of winding and layering materials, and eventually toward a promising idea that he is pursuing now: a tube whose wall could be engineered with different materials in different regions to create a custom set of mechanical properties.
The result is not a wholly new material in the traditional sense, but a new structural approach. Techreo combines familiar materials—commercial metal tubes, thin metal foil, structural adhesives, and carbon fiber—in layered arrangements that produce properties not possible with a single-material tube.
One of the most important advantages comes from constrained-layer damping, which allows vibration to dissipate much more quickly than it does in standard aluminum or steel tubes. In robotic pick-and-place operations, that can mean less time waiting for a tool to stop bouncing and more time spent doing useful work.
Making Automation Accessible
That practical, performance-first way of thinking reflects McNeil’s background. He retired from Procter & Gamble in 2018, but remains a hands-on engineer with a mechanic’s instincts.
He is a professional who not only wants to design a system, but also understands how a person will build it, maintain it, and make it work under real-world conditions. “I’m a mechanical engineer,” McNeil explained. “But I’m more hands-on, practical focused.” He likes to get his “hands dirty.”
That perspective helps shape how he thinks about the future of automation. While large manufacturers may be able to solve a production challenge by buying a bigger robot or redesigning an entire system, smaller companies don’t always have this option.
McNeil sees Techreo’s tubing as a way to help those businesses extend the reach and capability of the equipment they already own. One example he gives involves a small manufacturer that needed to replace an expensive robot just because they needed it to reach just a few more feet. A lighter boom could potentially offer a far less costly way to expand capability without replacing the full system, he reasoned.
An end view of the new high-performance tube structure shows the layered design that helps deliver key performance benefits. Photo: Kevin McNeil
The Future
As manufacturers face labor shortages and increased productivity needs, the robotics industry will help meet those demands. Techreo is first concentrating on robotic tooling because the fit is so clear, but McNeil sees broader possibilities as well, from aerospace and defense to any application where long, lightweight structures must resist bending and vibration.
For now, the immediate challenge is not proving the technology so much as making sure people know it exists. “We have a great product, but no one knows we exist. How do we get it out there?” he asked.
Techreo has been building its manufacturing capability, securing patents in the United States and Europe, and demonstrating its products in real robotic environments, including a pick-and-place demonstration at a local FANUC facility.
As a kid, McNeil was fascinated by a cuckoo clock on the wall. “I had to figure out how this thing works. I took it apart,” he admitted. And then the problem was putting it back together. So he knows that life has brought new challenges—from marketing and partnerships to scaling production intelligently—but those are the kinds of problems he seems eager to solve.
Cathy Cecere is membership content program manager.
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