nir-vana innovation network

A Dutch international operating company, which started in 2006 is specialized in realizing total solutions in the field of industrial robot automation, such as self-driving vehicles, so called autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and automation of internal logistics. The company offers total solutions from consultancy and engineering to implementation and delivery.
The AMRs are in particular meant for the manufacturing industry with the aim of increasing production yields, scalability and making the production process as independent of people as possible.

With the implementation of AMRs, the company involves the logistic processes in its automation projects, where materials and (semi-finished) products (within manufacturing companies) frequently are moved around.
A large variety of companies in the metal-, plastic-, automotive-, aerospace-, food- and consumer electronics industry, make already use of these autonomous mobile robots.
In addition to the development and realization of these customer-specific automation systems, the company distributes different types of Canadian made self-driving load material transporters.

Currently, the company is expanding its activities abroad and therefore looking for sales partners and system integrators. Technological skills and experience in industrial warehousing and logistic automation systems, are a must. Besides selling default autonomous mobile robots, the envisioned partner preferably has an IT and engineering department to implement projects and give support and maintenance and develop customized automation solutions.
The potential partners are permitted to incorporate the AMRs in their own solutions as an ad on or for projects that focus on internal logistics and/or material handling. Having an existing client network in mentioned areas is a plus.

The Dutch company will take care of a full in-depth training program, including AMR specific knowledge and give all necessary support during the first projects to make sure that subsequent projects can be successfully performed in the future.
All hard- and software will be supplied by the Dutch company. The partners will stay fully independent in doing their own projects and therefore cooperation is envisaged within the frame of a distribution services agreement.

Advantages & innovations

Advantages: - The AMR market can be regarded as a fast growing market with lots of commercial opportunities as supported by the evidence based sales figures. - Within the AMR technology the company uses advanced fleet manager software as well as smart driving solutions. The AMRs can operate in very complex situations and foresee in big deployments, whereby a lot of data is collected to make sure the right data-driven decisions can be made. - Business intelligence dashboards are available and everything can be traced, both payload orders and changes, which are made to existing layouts. - The setup and control of the AMR solution is web-based, easy and following the newest standards and trends in user interface and user experience design. This means a lot of touch and drag and drop controls and easy for the basic operations on whatever device you use it. - The AMR system introduces many integration possibilities via tablets, webpages, physical buttons, hypertext transfer protocol secure application programming interface (HTTPS API), open platform communications unified architecture (OPC-UA), data sockets and many more. - There is a family of AMRs that will all work in the same eco- system, which scales very well into the hundreds of vehicles in a single fleet. - The AMRs also have a high uptime, wide temperature range and a long battery runtime.

Stage of development

Already on the market

Partner sought

The aim of the company is to establish reliable and long-term business relationships. The company is looking for sales and system integrator partners within Europe that: • are seriously committed, also in terms of investment, and willing to set up a long-term business relationship, • have technological competences in automation, both in hardware and software development, • preferably already have an established position in automation, logistics, Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGVs), warehousing or similar, • preferably have an existing user base in a related market • have a minimum quality of projects and working ethos that fits with a premium brand, • bring in a relevant client network or are willing to develop one. The company itself is willing to cooperate during the whole process from the exploring, designing, testing up to the final implementation stage and will provide the partner with all necessary information. The partner will be trained and supported in setting up projects and implementing them. The first part of the training is online and self-directed, the second part will be in the Netherlands or at the partners site. When the partner implements his first project, the company will support the partner in every step to ensure all necessary information has been transferred, so that the partner can quickly carry out projects independently. The company envisages a distribution services agreement but also other cooperation agreements could be discussed later.