Robot Vacuums

[Admin]

Interesting article and youtube video. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11485668 Anyone experimenting with robotic vacuums? We’re using two ride on vacuums for our Library as our Custodians in those areas clean about 70,000 sqft each. They work great and the staff are happy, but they are not automated. Regardless, thoughts on robot technology? Jason R. Wang

[Admin]

Risk Management shut down our experimental robotic vacuum program. They insisted that there had to be an operator for safety reasons. We argued that adding an operator defeated the purpose of being robotic. Being Facilities, we developed a workaround and presented a video to Risk Management showing that our improved robot vacuum technically met their requirement and was so safe that the device would not even harm a baby duck. Obviously, we save on labor. But, there's more! We put our feral cat population to work!

Here is the video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Of2HU3LGdbo

Rick Finden

[Admin]

I’m not going to lie…. I was looking forward to Rick’s response. Sorry to trouble you on vacation, but you can’t make this stuff up. The truth is, I’ve had several discussions in the past few months with folks a lot smarter than me regarding the probability of mechanizing labor functions. From a technology standpoint, think about what folks said about cell phones 30 years ago…. Jason R. Wang

[Admin]

So many questions about bringing technology (a great idea) into our world: How many breaks would the robots be entitled to under the CBA? Would they be entitled to a stipend for not running into things/people? Would they be entitled to reduced fair share fees? Kevin Doyle

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