Interview with Radek Štourač at ROBOTY 2025: Dark Factory in Action – How KINALI Is Reimagining Modern Manufacturing

At the ROBOTY 2025 conference, Radek Štourač, CEO of KINALI, shared insights into what modern industrial automation looks like today — and where it’s heading. The conversation explored not only the development of Test-it-off, KINALI’s  platform for automating testing of PCBAs, but also broader trends shaping the future of manufacturing. 

A key highlight was the concept of the Dark Factory — a fully autonomous production environment capable of running nonstop, even overnight, without human supervision. Thanks to its modular architecture, stand-alone design, and intuitive no-code interface, Štourač emphasized that this vision is already technically and economically achievable today thanks to Test-it-off. 

“One of the biggest advantages is that we can decouple the pace of production from the pace of inspection. Each process runs at its own optimal speed, efficiently and without unnecessary delays,” Štourač explained. 

The interview also challenged outdated perceptions of automation as merely a tool for cutting labor costs. Instead, Štourač advocates for viewing robotics as a means of improving quality, flexibility, and operational resilience. That’s why KINALI places a strong focus on user-friendly design, enabling everyday operators to manage advanced systems without IT expertise. 

The full interview was published by Vše o průmyslu and also appeared in the print edition of Control Engineering Czech Republic, Issue 1/2025. 

 Read the full interview on Vše o průmyslu (in Czech) 
 Browse the full issue: Control Engineering Česko 1/2025