Six years ago, the start-up was founded by a group of young engineers in Eschlikon, Switzerland, in a "Silicon Valley"-style garage. This year, they won first place for "full robotization" in the Swiss Logistics Award 2022. And now they are expanding into the robotics market in Japan.
The company now sells its K900 autonomous dry cleaning robot for industrial use worldwide. A few months ago, the Japanese Obayashi Group became aware of this product innovation. After numerous discussions and negotiations, a breakthrough has been achieved: "We are very proud to announce that PLiBOT is our new sales partner in Japan," said Martin Gadient, CEO of Kemaro AG. PLiBOT was founded in August 2022 and is a subsidiary of Obayashi Corporation. Obayashi, in turn, is one of the five largest Japanese construction companies. The company is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a Nikkei 225 company with a turnover of approximately 20 billion Swiss francs.
Photo: Kemaro
PLiBOT aims to offer autonomous and labor-saving solutions through the use of autonomous mobile robots. The company believes in the sustainable interaction between humans and robots and intends to conquer the material handling and cleaning markets. The first twenty K900 robots have arrived in Japan, and another 40 will be shipped in the coming weeks: "Of course, we are incredibly happy that this highly innovative Japanese company is relying on our K900 robot. We look forward to collaborating with our new Japanese partner," said Armin Koller, Chairman of the Board and co-founder of Kemaro. Koller spent two weeks in Japan in mid-September and met with PLiBOT representatives for further discussions about cooperation.
Kemaro was founded by Thomas Oberholzer, Martin Gadient, and Armin Koller with the vision of revolutionizing industrial floor cleaning – in terms of health protection, environmental sustainability, and cost savings. In its early days, the company operated out of construction containers, later moving to underground development facilities. Today, the business is managed from its headquarters on Bahnhofstrasse in Eschlikon.
Fig.: PLiBOT
With the K900 robot (the successor to the original K800), Kemaro offers a cleaning machine ideally suited for warehouse operations, developed with Swiss engineering expertise. The K900 cleans autonomously and intelligently in logistics, production, and industrial environments, perceiving its surroundings via state-of-the-art laser and 3D sensors. Information from additional sensors is fused in a high-performance computer, enabling the robot to navigate even thousands of square meters of warehouse space. It cleans floors without chemicals or water and autonomously disposes of packaging remnants, industrial dust, and pallet debris.
Furthermore, built-in M-class dust filters clean approximately three cubic meters of air per minute of wood and metal dust as well as paint particles. "The workload for cleaning industrial halls can be minimized by using the dry cleaning robot, and working time can be invested in value-adding activities," says Sales Manager Thomas Oberholzer.
