Luke Merrett is back at ASA as our Technical Sales specialist, and we’re excited and grateful to have him return. He’s not rejoining as a stranger but as someone who knows the team, the late nights that save a run, and the practical fixes that stop small problems becoming big ones. Luke’s hands‑on commissioning background, from a fitting and turning apprenticeship at Holden to commissioning high‑speed packaging systems around the world, gives him the credibility customers value; he speaks engineering and operations in the same sentence.
His first real taste of robotics came in 2002, working with FANUC systems in the paint shop at Holden. That early mix of hands 
on trade work and path programming left him with a practical lens most salespeople don’t have. “I can often relate with customers regarding their shop floor challenges, and also their expectations from automation,” Luke says. He’s comfortable talking PLCs and HMIs, but he’s equally comfortable standing beside an operator and timing a cycle to find the real bottleneck.
What makes Luke useful to customers is how he blends technical depth with a systems view. He’ll model payload, reach and cycle time to prove a concept on paper, but he also asks the bigger questions: how will higher throughput change warehouse movements, quality checks or staffing? That wider perspective helps ASA design solutions that fit the whole operation, not just the task in front of the robot.
Luke’s experience spans food and beverage, FMCG and high speed packaging, and he’s worked on installations from Australia to China to North America and beyond. He’s pragmatic about the first step when a customer is unsure: “You know your operations inside and out, so it makes sense to directly hear more about the challenges you’re experiencing.” That conversational, floor level approach is how he turns uncertainty into a scoped, testable concept.
He’s already working on projects that bring robotics and metrology together. Robotic loading and unloading of a Mitutoyo CMM is one example he’s excited to share with customers soon, and he’s unapologetically old school about his favourite FANUC robots:
“If it doesn’t have to be a current model, the FANUC P‑200E is absolutely bullet proof. Otherwise, the FANUC R‑2000’s reliability and performance are hard to beat.”
We’re thankful Luke chose to come back because he strengthens the bridge between engineering and customer outcomes: clearer briefs, smoother installs and a higher chance that a cell will perform on day one.
