Autonomous Floor Scrubber at a 180,000 sq ft Plant: Two Technicians Become One

Two technicians for a floor that never stopped

The plant ran production across about 180,000 sq ft of open polished concrete, with consistent overnight access. Pallet positions in the main production zones stayed relatively static, which made the floor a good candidate for repetitive, scheduled cleaning. Keeping it clean meant dedicated floor operators on the main production floor, not a passing crew.

Two oversight technicians per shift were tied to floor care on the main production floor. That is labor committed to a route that repeats the same lanes every night. The plant needed the coverage without locking two people to a machine's path.

• Open polished concrete with consistent overnight access
• Static pallet positions in the main production zones
• Secondary zones that still needed a person on rounds

One scrubber, a 90 day pilot, and a rule for the lanes

The rollout began as a pilot, not a fleet order. One autonomous scrubber ran on the main production floor while a human technician stayed on the secondary zones. That split let the team measure how the machine handled the real floor before any staffing decision was made.

The first month brought frequent obstacle stops, and each stop required someone to restart the machine. The fix was procedural rather than mechanical: no pallets were allowed in the main production lanes during the cleaning window. Stops dropped sharply over the first 60 days.

The machine still needs a human to fill the solution tank, empty the recovery tank, check the brush system, and address mechanical issues. By day 90 the scrubber was covering the main production floor each shift with one oversight technician instead of two dedicated floor operators.

• Map the floor and confirm a consistent overnight cleaning window
• Run one scrubber on the main production floor with a technician on secondary zones
• Keep pallets out of the main production lanes during the cleaning window
• Track obstacle stops and restarts through the first 60 days
• Reassign staff only after coverage held for the full pilot

What the 90 days measured, and what they did not

The headline outcome is that two oversight technicians per shift became one. The scrubber covered the main production floor each shift. Coverage consistency is described qualitatively, as cleaner than when human operators handled it, and no count of passes or hours is given.

The equipment payback is a vendor reported figure. The labor savings were said to fund the equipment in under three years. Any buyer should run that claim against its own staffing costs and overtime records before relying on it.

The vendor's table places manufacturing plants of 100,000 to 300,000 sq ft at a labor displacement of 1 to 2 FTEs, with a 24 to 36 month payback estimate. This plant sits inside that size band, which makes its result a reasonable reference point for similar floors. It remains one site's pilot, not a guarantee.

Two cautions belong with these results. The 90 days were a single scrubber pilot, and the fix that cut stops was a lane rule, which means production scheduling carried part of the automation's load.

What a leased deployment looks like from here

Service Robot Co. is a full service, OEM neutral commercial robot integrator for US businesses. We select the right robots across manufacturers, then finance, deploy, integrate, train, and service every unit through a nationwide US engineer network. One vendor covers the whole lifecycle, from the first site visit to the service call.

Our offer is a lease: a three year lease with one fixed payment quoted after a site assessment. For a floor like this one, that assessment would test the same questions this pilot answered, including whether the floor is open enough, whether the overnight window holds, and whether pallet and lane rules can be kept. Robot leasing for business works best when those answers are known before the machine arrives.

The technician role changes rather than disappears. Training prepares the people who keep the machine running, and a service path handles stops and mechanical faults. A plan should price that shift in from the start.