The award nomination recognises their ‘innovative application’ of robotic solutions in food and beverage. SoftBank installed its ‘Keenbot’ tray delivery robots in Compass Group’s head office.
In a four week trial the robots were used to deliver food in the on-site restaurants and across other parts of the building where 200 employees are based. Due to the success of the trial, Compass has now deployed the robots throughout its Global HQ restaurants and to serve conference rooms, as well as supplying them to several large clients.
Charles Elliott, a regional general manager for Compass Group, said: “The robots have helped improve efficiency within the workplace by allowing table service to be delivered whilst the catering team are still serving customers on the counter. It also adds innovation to the site which has sparked attraction from other clients.”
Compass is using the T5 tray delivery cobot for restaurant service and the W3 room service cobot to deliver food and drink to other areas within a building. Both contain a laser mapping system enabling the cobot to navigate to the desired location, avoiding people and obstacles.
Harry Ridley, automation and emerging technology manager for Compass, added: “We are already expanding our cobotic service solution to several large clients, both in the university education sector and business and industry space, with more planned in the next few months in partnership with SoftBank.”