Nexterity wants to automate the hard, dangerous part of pipefitting

Lindsey Elliott is big into bolts. At last year’s Bolting Symposium — the 13th annual — she said the highlight was playing “Bolting Bingo” against the many self-proclaimed “torque dorks” who were in the room.

A former engineer and planner at ExxonMobil, Elliott has spent years thinking about how to improve the infrastructure that moves oil, gas, and petrochemicals. Bolts are what she landed on. Specifically, the bolts that connect sections of pipe (technically called “bolted flange joints”). These bolts require hard, physical work to loosen and tighten, and are the source of many pipefitters’ injuries. Like many trade industries, there’s also a labor shortage.

“Those people get really tired when they’re asked to work 12 hours a day for three months in a row,” she told TechCrunch. “I’ve talked to pipefitters across the U.S. across Canada, and just repeatedly have been told North American pipefitting productivity is notoriously low.”