Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MACCO (Bring social robots into reality with the first real world leading bartender (MACCO) )
Reporting period: 2019-06-01 to 2019-11-30
Hotels, restaurants, bars and other hospitality venues are stressful working environments, where efficiency, speed of operation, and service quality are essential. In addition, there is a strong brand competition between the different venues to offer a unique experience. Macco Robotics specializes in developing creative and friendly humanoid robots for different sectors in the hospitality industry. The company was founded in 2013 with the mission to develop technology that enables the transformation of the gastronomic sector by improving the service’s quality, adapting it to the real needs of the users and to their new consumption habits. In last years, we have developed MACCO, a multitasking kiosk barman robot designed to attend hotels, restaurants, bars and other leisure events in the hospitality industry, by assisting the staff, making their jobs easier and more efficient.
During the FS, we designed the technical activities required to reach a TRL9 through technical improvements (OS optimization, articulated arm development) as well as through validation activities with industry leaders. A full market research was carried out identifying target clients, potential customers, addressable market and competitors. A prior-art analysis was carried out concluding that we have Freedom-to-Operate in our target countries. Our market penetration strategy will be developed through direct sales to business looking to automate their services. Due to the modularity of our design, we will be able to set up assembly lines in our target geographical markets (Spain, Germany and France), sourcing from local providers and employing the local community, dramatically increasing our scalability and reducing our time to market.
Our multitasking kiosk barman robot is equipped with proprietary arms that enables him to precisely multitask, manipulating objects with errors as low as 0.1 % and preparing cocktails in less than 30 seconds. In addition, MACCO provides fully autonomous operational assistance 24/7 reducing costs and increasing the efficiency of the service by reducing operational risks, automatizing tedious tasks and reducing waste during operations. Furthermore, our robot is able to autonomously interact with clients due to being equipped with robot vision and artificial intelligence that enables him to track food and safety with high precision (0.1 – 1 %), as well as recommend new beverages after recognizing a customer or convers with him/her in natural language