Facility management has traditionally heavily relied on human labour. However, B+N Group’s R&D shows automation is meant to support, not replace, people. The company’s in-house robots, digital systems, and microbiological research all pursue one aim: making cleaning efficient, measurable, and people-focused.
ROBIN is not a superhero, but it supports hundreds daily. B+N Group’s in-house “cobot”—a collaborative robot—works with employees, not instead of them. It does not fatigue, rush, or err, reinforcing a key principle: future technology is made to work with people, not against them.
B+N Group is a leading integrated facility management provider in Central and Eastern Europe, operating in nine countries with nearly 29,000 employees. In late 2016, the company founded its R&D unit, unique in the domestic market. Fourteen specialists in the Technology and Innovation Department target the labour-intensive cleaning segment with autonomous technologies. The goal is not to remove manual work, but to make cleaning more efficient and reduce the physical demands on employees.
“We discussed the need for cleaning robots in 2016. Labour shortages and an aging workforce prompted us to consider automating some processes to maintain quality. That led us to develop our own cleaning robot,” says Péter Zalka, Head of R&D at B+N Group, in an interview with National Geographic.
From the outset, technological development went hand in hand with professional quality and measurability. “The objective was never to replace cleaning, but to make it measurable. Cleaning has traditionally been difficult to quantify, yet we wanted to support daily operations with objective data that clearly demonstrates quality,” highlights Dr Ágnes Ősz, Senior Scientific Researcher at the B+N Group.
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