Tennant Company announces the launch of their latest autonomous floor cleaning machine, the T380AMR Robotic Floor Scrubber. The T380AMR is a joint development project with Brain Corp, and the machine was designed and released in only 9 months. The need for a smaller and more nimble machine came directly from the requests of existing Tennant floor scrubber customers. The genesis of the idea is to have an autonomous floor scrubbing machine capable of operating in smaller retail stores with narrower aisles and with the ability to navigate around any type of product display.
Tennant currently has two AMRs in its floor scrubber product line the T380AMR (l) and the T7AMR (r). (image courtesy of Tennant)
The T380AMR robotic cleaning machine is the latest in Tennant’s world-class AMR line that operates in complex, real-world environments without direct operator control. The T380 joins its larger sibling, the T7AMR autonomous floor scrubber. Since its introduction two years ago, the T7 has seen record sales for Tennant. Tennant is now one of the top three floor scrubber suppliers in each of its markets. In North America, the T7AMR has been deployed at more than 1,200 stores. Tennant claims to have the largest installed population of autonomous floor scrubbers of any manufacturer.
Bryan Smith, Senior Marketing Manager for Tennant said: “We brought the T380 machine to market faster than any other product in our history. Speed and nimbleness [of project delivery] wasn’t our super power in the past. This was a completely new product, starting from scratch with an entirely new chassis, and it took us less than 9 months to get it on the floor at our early customer sites. Plus, this development project happened while the development team was working remotely during the early days of the pandemic”
Phil Duffy, VP of Product at Brain Corporation added: “The T380AMR shares the same BrainOS core, drive system and sensors as the T7AMR. Fundamentally all we needed to change was the kinematics and the control parameters and then the new machine was able to quickly integrate into our existing floor cleaning fleet management software which is already proven with the T7AMR. Having a partner like Tennant, with their broad field service and support staff, makes the product introduction process really simple.”
Duffy went on to say, “The bigger story is that Tennant is now the biggest AMR supplier for machines that operate around the public. Now the requirement is to know that the facility is clean and measure the performance of the robots. With the COVID19 pandemic, cleaning is essential and robotic applications are being more accepted. Retail is one of the leading markets for acceptance of AMR-based solutions. From our customer data, we’ve seen a 133% increase in floor scrubber usage during daytime hours. We’ve also seen a 24% increase in floor cleaning overall during the pandemic. Retailers want cleaning to be more visible to the public as cleanliness is part of their brand. There’s definitely a market trend to convey that retail stores are taking cleanliness seriously for consumers”.
