Autonomous robots and the cleaning industry

#News(General) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]

Avidbots was started in the high-tech corridor of Waterloo. The region in Southwestern Ontario is home to some of the country’s top rated technology universities. In fact, Waterloo Region is home to hundreds of companies that also service the automation industry.

“The difference with Avidbots is that we started as a robot company first, not as a retrofit or an add-on idea. We have built the most technologically advanced and robust robotic hardware and software platform in the industry. Avidbots is 100 per cent vertically integrated in that we have the ability to control and change the hardware, software and support which makes us nimble and better able to respond to customers needs than the competition”, said Pablo Molina, Avidbots CTO, Chairman and Co-founder.

 Another major differentiator with Avidbots is that Neo is in it’s ninth generation. This is no small task in any industry. “We have been working exclusively solving the self-driving floor scrubber problem for almost five years. We have kept our prototypes on display in our facility to remind us where we came from, where we are right now and where we are going next,” Molina explained. “We are committed to building the highest quality self-driving floor scrubber; there are many aspects to consider; safety, productivity, ease of use, diagnostics and reporting – we want to delight our customers at every touch point. We are also lucky to be involved in the early days of robotics and standards in our industry – we are actively involved in driving the industry standards for this type of technology.”

These targeted customers are companies with large floor spaces that include retail, malls, airports, hospitals, warehouses, colleges and universities. “We are finding some particular niches within these areas, but in the end, customers want a fast return on investment and usually have large floor spaces to clean – a perfect fit for automation and robotics.”

Data is a big driver at Avidbots. Integral to the system is a suite of reporting tools that track how much area Neo cleaned and how much water was utilized, for example. The technology provides metrics and KPIs that many companies have never had access to before. “After shipping our first hundred robot units, we noted that many of our customers use Neo in different ways,” Sheikh said. “Because we collect data on each robot, we start seeing these patterns in use. We also are different from our competitors in how we have an intense focus on customer success. When we started Avidbots, we understood that floor scrubbing robots and automation are new territory for almost all of our clients, so we implemented a customer success team that is cross-functional.

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