Site Assessment to Fixed Lease Quote: Robot Process Guide

What happens between first contact and a fixed lease quote?

The fixed lease quote comes after the site is measured, not before. Service Robot Co. offers commercial robots through financing on a three year lease, with one fixed lease payment quoted once we know the floor, the tasks and the deployment scope. A number set before the walk would be a guess.

In practice the sequence runs in order: a scoping conversation, a site survey, floor mapping, task selection across manufacturers, and a deployment scope that states which robots run, where and when. Each step narrows the next one. A robot that looks right on a spec sheet can still stumble on a threshold strip or a gradient nobody mentioned.

Why is the floor measured before anything is priced?

Published deployment guides put assessment first. One AMR deployment guide, from a robotics vendor and undated, places site assessment ahead of infrastructure preparation, integration, testing and go live with staff training. Its assessment items include a floor surface audit and a wireless coverage test.

A manufacturer manual for a 2D LiDAR robot recommends a full site survey of wireless coverage, tested from several locations rather than one. Surface and signal are the two checks that decide whether a unit can run the route you have in mind at all.

There is no independent standard for what a survey must contain. The steps here reflect vendor and manufacturer guidance, which is why we describe our process in plain terms.

How does the map decide what a robot may do?

A cleaning robot cannot start an autonomous task without a base map. SoftBank's S50 quick starter guide, dated April 2023, says so directly, and it tells operators to review the map for missing areas and confirm that permanent obstacles were captured.

Timing matters as well. Sparkobot, a cleaning robot vendor, recommends mapping during quiet hours and sets keep out and slow zones during the audit. Its guide says the map is stored on the robot rather than in the cloud, so a dropped wireless connection does not stop cleaning. The Omron manual adds a habit worth copying: map during low traffic periods, and rescan patchy sections before saving.

What should you bring to the assessment?

Bring what the surveyor can check on the floor. The list below is what makes the first visit short, and it is what we ask for before anyone walks the site.

• Floor plans or CAD drawings, with racks, fixed equipment and drains marked
• Surface details for each zone, whether concrete, epoxy, tile, carpet or a mix, plus any recent refinishing
• Door widths, elevator access and thresholds between zones
• Shift times and peak traffic windows, including when the floor is busiest
• Notes on the wireless network and any spots where the signal is weak
• Your internal rules on cameras, data and cleaning chemicals

How does a baseline turn into a fair pilot?

Record before you deploy. RobotLAB suggests tracking hours per week of floor care by zone for two weeks before deployment, then using those figures to compare the pilot against how the floor is handled today. Two weeks is a vendor suggestion, not a regulation, but it gives the pilot something to beat.

A baseline also shows where the robot's hours should land. If the night crew spends most of its time on one wing, the assessment starts there. Without the record, a pilot can report how the robot performed but never whether it beat the old routine.

How are robots matched to tasks across manufacturers?

Task first, brand second. Service Robot Co. is OEM neutral, so we choose the robot for the floor, the route and the job, across manufacturers. We then finance, deploy, integrate, train and service every unit through a nationwide US engineer network, so one vendor holds the assessment and the service that follows.

Market reporting shows where cleaning sits. According to Automate's coverage of the service robot data, professional cleaning ranked third with a 12 percent share, with floor cleaning as its main application. Supply Chain 247 reports that transport and logistics led, with 117,500 units in 2025, up 21 percent and holding a 47 percent share.

That data comes from a supplier survey of 238 producers out of 1,001 manufacturers, and the totals are not projected across the whole industry. Treat the figures as direction for your category, not as a forecast for your site.

What does the quote cover once the survey is done?

The quote reflects the deployment scope the assessment produced: which robots, which zones, which hours and what integration the site needs. A three year lease carries one fixed lease payment, so any change to scope gets settled before signing, not discovered afterward.

No independent source sets a standard for the time between survey and quote, and none was found for this article. Ask for that date in writing, along with a list of what the survey covered, so both sides can check the quote against the walk.