Facility management firm Integrated Facility Solutions (IFS) aims to achieve revenue growth of 20% per year by introducing floor-cleaning robots from Japanese firm SoftBank Robotics to help ease labour costs.
Worapong Padungkirtsakul, chief executive of IFS, said the new robot service the company introduced in the middle of last year should help increase revenue by 10% in 2024 to 7.7 billion baht, by 15% in 2025, and by 20% per year thereafter.
"The revenue growth will come from both existing customers and new ones," he said.
"The impetus was a shortage of workers and the rise in labour costs."
In January, IFS entered into a joint venture with SoftBank Robotics Singapore, the Asia-Pacific arm of SoftBank Robotics Group, forming SmartBX Robotics Co, which will provide robotic cleaning solutions featuring Whiz I, an artificial intelligence-powered robot vacuum cleaner and sweeper.
While a regular human cleaner may only cover 50% of a floor via spot cleaning, a robot cleaner is able to effectively clean 100% of the same floor space, said Mr Worapong.
"Our cleaning service still relies on a human workforce, but technology enhances its effectiveness," he said.
"This doesn't reduce the number of human cleaners, rather it allows us to redeploy them to other tasks."
Mr Worapong said Whiz I will be marketed at 600,000 baht per unit, or monthly rental for 25,000 baht.
First adopters will be primarily the manufacturing and healthcare sectors, he said.
IFS serves more than 1,500 customers at some 2,000 sites nationwide, covering a total area of more than 45 million square metres.
Roughly 43% of these sites are in the industrial sector, making them likely candidates for utilising a robot vacuum cleaner and sweeper, said Mr Worapong.
Other customer segments include commercial buildings (13%), retail (12%), healthcare (11%), real estate (8%), transport (5%), energy and resources (4%), pharmaceuticals (3%) and government (1%).
He said customers considering a purchase can break even in 6-9 months.
IFS has been using robots to clean floors for four years, but the technology was outdated as it required a reset when encountering obstructions, making them difficult for maids to use.
Prices were also much higher in the past, exceeding 1 million baht per unit.
The cleaning service is the major revenue source for IFS, accounting for 45%, followed by security services (25%), support (20%), and integrated facility management (10%).
