Overnight Autonomous Scrubbing Across a Canadian 3PL Warehouse Network

Conventional cleaning at a building this large

A warehouse floor never stays clean for long. Dust, spills and heavy traffic build up across a site of about 1.2 million sq ft, and conventional cleaning pulls labor hours away from the work that moves goods.

The operator set autonomous floor cleaning against conventional cleaning. The practical test was whether a robot could keep the floors clean without a crew on the machine, and whether the hours it freed would be real.

Start at the head office, then extend the rollout

In summer 2020 the operator explored fully autonomous floor scrubbing robots at its Canadian head office and warehouse. The robot supplier helped build 10 unique cleaning plans for the facility, so the machine worked from routes shaped to that building rather than one template.

The robot runs overnight, which keeps cleaning out of the working day. After the head office deployment, the operator extended the robots to two other Canadian facilities, and it has said it plans to expand to some US warehouses as well.

• Summer 2020: the operator explores fully autonomous floor scrubbers at its head office and warehouse
• Cleaning plans: the robot supplier helps build 10 unique plans shaped to the facility
• Overnight running: the scrubber cleans after hours while the building is quiet
• Expansion: the deployment extends to two other Canadian facilities
• Next step: plans to extend the robots to some US warehouses

What the operator reports after the rollout

The operator reports that the robots saved hundreds of hours in labor compared with conventional cleaning. Each robot's reports track total area cleaned, cleaning productivity and water consumption, so the operations team can check the work against numbers rather than impressions.

One robot can clean the facility, which is a notable point for a site of this size. The project is also newly LEED Silver certified, as reported in the vendor supplied account of the deployment.

These outcomes come from the operator and its vendor, and they depend on the building, the floor and the cleaning plan. A site assessment is the right way to size what the same approach would deliver at another facility.

What this means for a warehouse cleaning program

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, so a warehouse manager deals with one partner and one number.

For a warehouse weighing an autonomous floor scrubber lease, the first step is a site assessment. We quote one fixed payment on a three year lease after that assessment, and the same visit maps the floor and shapes the cleaning plan, much as the operator's 10 unique plans were built for its building.

A first project often starts with one leased unit at one site, then grows as the overnight routine and the reports prove out. Go live support keeps the first weeks on track, and our engineers service each unit through the US network.