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Procurement of Robotics Technology for the Cleaning Sector

What are Robotics? Is it a wise decision to use robots instead of humans in the cleaning sector? What will robots look like in the future? Will humans ever become more robot-like? Robotics comes from the word “robota” which means the force to work. Today, we use the word “Robot” to introduce the man-made machine that can perform human tasks.

What Robots do?

Robots are such a great tools to humans because they can do repeating actions therefore workloads can be share between human and machine.. As robots become more technology advanced and autonomous, they learnt how to do jobs fast and better compared to humans. Their power, intelligence and endless energy levels make them the perfect employees for many variety of jobs that humans just cannot afford to do.

The general assumption is that equipment like mops, brooms, or buckets are only for cleaning industries. However now in modern days, equipment such as the floor scrubbers to vacuums, to power washing machines etc need to play their important roles and these technological advances have facilitated many cleaning jobs. But we should not always depend on the machines or let the technology to do everything for us because no matter how advanced it is, there will still be a need for some human interaction.

These cleaning robots are expected to run themselves and clean the paths that are programmed into them. Although these machines would be able to speed up their cleaning jobs, they still need someone to be present while the cleaning robots are at work. The pictures below show the cleaning tasks undertaken by human and robot.

cleaning tasks undertaken by human and robot

The Limitations of Robots

Unable to think – Robots are unable to think or make decisions as they are only tools which help us to get things done and they are machines with programed movements that allow them to move in certain places. Artificial intelligence has given robots more ability to process information and to “learn.” however they still get limited information that are given and the functions which they need to do.

Machines are not capable of seeing every single details – The cleaning robots may be great and useful for cleaning many cleaning jobs but they do not know whether they performed a good job for us. It was because many robots are programmed to perform specific functions unless there is someone physically to see the work that was being done therefore we cannot guarantee the job will be exactly perfect or not. Then if there any breakdown while in the middle of cleaning and it is out of the way, there is a high possibilities that the robot will go around and they will think it is an obstacle so by glitch they will miss a spot which need to be cleaned. The pictures below show the typical cleaning robots.

typical cleaning robots

Machines cannot create a business relationship – We all know that our clients are the most significant and important part of every business, mainly because we can build business relationships with the clients and have long business with them. Having one of great the business service a facility helps to give any company a good reputation when excellent customer service is performed. If we only were to merely rely depend on the machines the one on one interaction would be lost and it will lead to lose an opportunity to build a good rapport with other companies.

Machines will not be able to provide the extra mile services – One of the most important advantage of human interaction is the ability of us to provide excellent customer service to the clients. If there any clients which request such as dusting a few windows the cleaning robot will not be able to perform that task. As everyday technology continues to become more advanced, it is not wise to leave it to those robots and machines and relied on them for everything.

The Benefits of using Robots

Work faster and efficient – Machines have very many advantages as compared to humans. Firstly they performed work faster than human beings and it makes them to give best performance for most duties especially where time is limited. In cleaning industries an organization will employ machines which will enable it to produce good efficient cleaning within a short duration of time.

Machines do not get exhausted or overtime – As opposed to human labor, most machines can work for a full day without getting tired. This able them to perform tasks which need to be performed throughout without taking any medical leave. A machine is also not ruled by the laws of labour concerning its working hours compared to the human beings who will only need to work for eight hours per day and any hour above that it is considered overtime and the company will need to pay. The pictures below show more variation of the cleaning robots.


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Abdul Khalid Bin Hashim
Abdul Khalid Bin Hashim
Khalid Hashim has substantial years of experience specifically in the cleaning industry. He holds a Bachelor degree with Honours in Logistics and Supply Chain Management from Northumbria University (UK). He is a qualified member of the Singapore Institute of Purchasing and Materials Management (SIPMM). He completed the course on Graduate Diploma in Procurement Management (GDPM) in April 2018 at SIPMM Institute.
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