In the study of economics, the role of technological progress has traditionally been seen as something that improves on the productivity of labor. Thus, the tools and solutions that we have should be geared toward making things easier to manage, in order for humans to have more human and more productive pursuits.
With artificial intelligence, we have arrived at an age wherein technology is now more actively contributing toward labor productivity in many areas. The World Economic Forum cites studies from Accenture and Frontier Economics, for instance, that has found labor productivity gains to be at least 40 percent in developed countries.
With innovations, we should not forget the human aspect, however, as Dylan Ng Terntzer stresses in a TechNode Global Q&A as part of the ORIGIN Innovation Awards. “[I]nnovation should always focus on improving the welfare of communities and seek to resolve the challenges they face in their day-to-day life. New technology should have the goal of improving a society’s quality of life,” says Terntzer, who is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of LionsBot International.
A winner at the category Startup – Artificial Intelligence category at the 2021 ORIGIN Innovation Awards, LionsBot is the Sinagpore-based creator of autonomous cleaning machines. The idea for LionsBot began when Dylan Ng Terntzer and Michelle Seow, co-founders of leading cleaning supplies distributor SuperSteam Asia Pacific, realised that there was a need for better and more powerful cleaning robots than what the global market had to offer.
The pair then teamed up with leading robotics professor Dr. Mohan Rajesh Elara, and they built their first cleaning robot from scratch and thus co-founded LionsBot in Singapore. The company has grown to having hundreds of cleaning robots in 21 countries and counting, with a mission to give cleaners superpowers with easy-to-use, powerful, and smart robots—making the world a better place, one cleaning robot at a time.
Terntzer envisions LionsBot to do revolutionize work for cleaning professionals, just like how smartphones revolutionized connected life. “In the next five years, it would become unimaginable for cleaning professionals to live in a world without smart robots. Smart robots have inadvertently revolutionised the cleaning industry, just like how smartphones have revolutionised our everyday life,” he told TechNode Global. “With our mission to transform cleaning through state-of-the-art technologies, we hope to have a LionsBot for every cleaning professional.”
What are the trends driving innovation in the Asia Pacific region today, particularly relevant to AI?
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the rollout of artificial intelligence tools, with many industries adopting these advanced technologies to improve business processes and increase revenue growth. With the rise of AI applications across industries, many organisations in healthcare, retail and e-commerce, banking and cleaning sectors are now looking at innovation as the key to develop a future-ready workforce.
Since the start of 2021, there has been an increase in demand in the APAC region for hyper-automated business processes, with a focus on human-centered AI and a shift from consumer AI towards industrial-grade AI. Through hyper-automation, businesses can reallocate mundane and repetitive tasks to automated machines, which increases their efficiency and productivity as these tasks can be performed within a shorter time and potentially, at a lower cost.. Similarly, human-centered AI is designed to learn from human input and perform tasks which complement the work of humans.
In the next five years, it would become unimaginable for cleaning professionals to live in a world without smart robots. Smart robots have inadvertently revolutionised the cleaning industry, just like how smartphones have revolutionised our everyday life. With our mission to transform cleaning through state-of-the-art technologies, we hope to have a LionsBot for every cleaning professional.
In the commercial cleaning industry where we operate, there is a significant labor shortage exacerbated by an aging population and low birth-rates. As such, the cleaning industry is lacking new cleaners who can perform such laborious and manual cleaning tasks. Despite a higher demand for cleaning jobs due to a rise in urbanisation across the APAC region and a greater focus on hygiene amid the pandemic, there is still a prevalent manpower shortage as the younger workforce prefer to take on jobs in non-labour intensive industries. With technological innovation, smart robots and machine learning are becoming the ‘new normal’, with an increase in demand for autonomous floor-cleaning robots which are designed to operate independently.
Such robots can be programmed to clean large public areas and require only remote supervision, thus freeing up the cleaning workforce to carry out higher-value tasks such as supervisory duties and customer service. Created to be interactive, the general public perception of smart robots in Asia Pacific is positive, as many public members view AI and robots as a complement to their lives instead of a threat. We can expect to see higher adoption of AI and autonomous robots in the near future across all industries in the future.
What are three key challenges that startups or innovators face in this post-pandemic environment?
With uncertainties caused by the global pandemic, many startups and SMEs realise the need to build an agile workforce to maintain business continuity. Based on my experience, three challenges I encountered were ensuring business continuity amid an uncertain and ever-changing environment, hiring digital talent and building a digital-first approach.
The pandemic is far from over and has greatly impacted many industries and forced us to reconsider the way we operate as a business. One of the key takeaways for us was learning how to be more adaptable as a company. In the last two years, we have witnessed a tremendous detrimental impact on global supply chains, and with workplace regulations constantly in flux, it was hard for companies, including us, to operate business as usual.
That’s why one of our key priorities last year was adapting our operations accordingly while keeping pace with our objectives. As hardware parts we used to make our robots were harder to procure and becoming more costly and there were also shorter lead times for international distribution, we had to streamline our operations to develop smart robots faster with higher precision. Such an unpredictable business environment will likely be the new normal going forward, which means that companies need to be flexible and be able to respond quickly to changing realities.
In addition, the pandemic has accelerated the digitalisation of multiple industries, making it harder to find digital hires from a limited talent pool. As a young and fast-growing company, we are always on the lookout to attract and hire talents from diverse backgrounds to complement the capabilities of our 70-strong team.
Fortunately for us, the increased emphasis on digital transformation across all industries has benefited our business. With an increase in demand for advanced cleaning technologies, our business has performed credibly over the past year and we were able to adapt swiftly to cater to the needs of B2B commercial cleaning clients.
What are the company’s strategies in addressing such challenges or enabling your portfolio companies/community partners to navigate these?
For LionsBot, our business faced several operational challenges initially amid the pandemic that we were fortunate to quickly overcome thanks to the support from our team.
One of the immediate frictions we faced was navigating the lockdown measures without affecting our productivity. Our engineers previously needed to be present in the office to test and work on the technology, but following the lockdowns, we chose to improvise rather than jeopardise our team’s health. We not only allowed engineers to bring the hardware home so that they can continue working on the robots, but also overhauled our working process so that we are able to work remotely.
Another challenge we faced was a shortage of chips that resulted in significantly longer waiting time and freight durations. The team then had to adapt by switching to parallel and concurrent product development for multiple projects to compensate for the long waiting time.
Another other major challenge was identifying the best way to conduct training for our distributors and suppliers during the pandemic. Our overseas dealers would previously fly to Singapore for training where we could go through and clarify on the different processes in person. As travelling was restricted, we quickly adapted our training sessions to be more compatible for a virtual setting–so that we can not only easily demonstrate our robots to potential dealers over Zoom, but also facilitate their understanding of the operational processes even if we were unable to be physically present.
Lastly, the pandemic was also a difficult period as we were unable to ensure a constant sales pipeline since many of our dealers across the different countries also faced lockdown restrictions. However, thanks to the support of our partners and team, we not only managed to achieve our goals for the year, but managed to surpass our sales targets by a significant margin.
What is the impact of community on innovation?
In my opinion, innovation should always focus on improving the welfare of communities and seek to resolve the challenges they face in their day-to-day life. New technology should have the goal of improving a society’s quality of life.
Automation and smart robotics have transformed the cleaning industry for the better. Take for example in Singapore, the majority of cleaners are seniors over 60 years old. While robots can simplify their work by performing physically demanding tasks, many of these cleaners are not technologically savvy and would need assistance in learning how to operate robots. Incorporating software such as user-friendly interfaces with better accessibility and hardware such as easy machine maintenance can help these cleaners become familiar with such new technologies.
In my opinion, innovation should always focus on improving the welfare of communities and seek to resolve the challenges they face in their day-to-day life. New technology should have the goal of improving a society’s quality of life.
As the world becomes increasingly globalised, cross-border working with other engineers from different cultures and communities will be the norm. A diverse workforce would be able to bring different perspectives and novel ideas to the table, and in turn, develop new and innovative technological solutions to solve global issues together.
Can you share some interesting data or case studies from your portfolio or partners that are a good example of how technology can bring about impactful change amid today’s business environment?
Notable case studies would be the Esplanade, a performing arts centre in downtown Singapore that spans 6.0 ha and the National Gallery of Singapore, a tourist landmark that is the size of 6.4 ha. As these public areas are mega-sized and experience high foot traffic, cleaning specialists previously faced a high workload as cleaning such a large space was extremely laborious and time-consuming.
Amid the manpower shortage in the cleaning industry in Singapore, many facility managers and cleaning contractors who manage shopping malls and public areas had to look towards technology solutions to address this challenge.
To resolve labour issues and improve cleaning efficiency, our solution was to incorporate smart cleaning robots which use artificial intelligence and cloud technology to work alongside cleaning specialists. Cleaning specialists used LionsCloud, our mobile app, which allowed them to operate several smart robots simultaneously and clean up to five different floor levels concurrently. They were also able to monitor the status of the cleaning through real-time tracking and mapping, freeing up their time to focus on higher level tasks such as customer service.
Therefore, we were able to solve the issues of labour shortages as it reduced the workload of cleaning contractors and allowed for one cleaning specialist to perform multiple tasks.