Knotts Team Spotlight Turns to Maria Santiago

This month our employee spotlight turns to Maria Santiago. Maria has been a member of the Knotts Company Sales Department for almost 2 years. As a Robotic Solutions Manager, she helps Knotts Company customers identify collaborative robot solutions to automate their applications. Maria spends a lot of time on-site with our customers getting to know their specific needs so that she can make recommendations to help increase productivity and reduce operating expenses.

Name: Maria Santiago 
Department: Sales
Title: Robotic Solutions Manager  
Time at Knotts: 2 years

Tell us about what you do: 
As the Robotic Solutions Manager, I help customers automate applications with Collaborative Robots. I often work with partners at Universal Robots, whose collaborative robots have the best longevity on the market. I also work closely with the team at MiR, a company that develops some of the most innovative AMR solutions on the market.

In order to help Knotts customers find the best solution for their specific goals, I visit their sites to learn more about the application, understand their pain points, and discuss goals/achievements with production rate and reducing operating expenses with these solutions. I conduct an assessment of the application to determine if Collaborative Robots are the right solution and explain the benefits our partner's solutions can provide.

What’s a recent challenge a customer (or internal Knotts Team) brought you and how did you solve it?
Recently, we've noticed that customers are feeling the impacts of the price increase of risen plastics, resulting in freezing capital expenditures. We've overcome these challenges by explaining to executives that automating the application will reduce their operating expenses, offsetting the price increase of risen plastic without affecting production rate.

What you love most about working at Knotts?   
The Knotts Company is a family-based company that encourages very strong family values. Many of the employees have been working for the team and servicing customers for decades. In addition, the company truly defines the term "customer service". The Knotts team will always do their very best to serve their customers. I take great pride in the company and in the relationships they have built over the years and I appreciate that Knotts cares for their employees as much as they do for their customers. 

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Outside of work, I'm usually living the mommy life ... which is the absolute best!