Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) is one of the world's leading suppliers of collaborative mobile robots. The company, headquartered in Odense, Denmark, specialises in autonomous mobile robots (AMR) that can act smartly and independently and can therefore be used flexibly for scalable tasks. The fact that MiR-Robots and the XITO-Platform are now compatible, makes it even easier to realise autonomous robotic systems for individual requirements in intralogistics. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular benefit from this, as it makes it possible to implement suitable transport solutions based on MiR models cost-effectively and easily, even without an in-house IT department.

In many small and medium-sized enterprises, internal logistics transports are still largely carried out with hand pallet trucks, forklifts or other vehicles and aids to be guided by humans. The use of automated guided vehicles (AGVs), on the other hand, often does not pay off for SMEs. This is due on the one hand to their acquisition costs, and on the other hand to the lack of flexibility of AGVs. Since they run via magnetic strips in the floor, they are only suitable for a limited number of tasks. If the tasks or their execution change, this requires costly and time-consuming modification.

In medium-sized enterprises, which usually have to act flexibly due to their respective specialisation, the costs incurred for AGVs therefore rarely pay off. While more and more processes are being automated in production and assembly, intralogistics remains a domain in SMEs where many heavy and monotonous tasks can still only be performed by employees. The time and savings potential of automation in production can therefore often not be optimally exploited. What is missing is the possibility of including intralogistics in automation in a simple and cost-effective way.

This is precisely where MiR's autonomous mobile robots come in. With their user-friendly, web-based programming technology, they offer the flexibility and scalability needed for use in SMEs. "We have made the idea a principle that the user can independently make programme changes themselves by us and our partners in order to operate the robots in changing environments," explains Jörg Faber, who as Sales Director at the Eschborn location (near Frankfurt a. M.) is responsible for the business development of Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) in the German speaking Europe (DACH region) and the Benelux countries.  "Our customers can thus also use the robots in environments that change literally from one moment to the next due to the conversions of machines and production methods."

MiR's AMRs are equipped with sensors that detect and avoid both dynamic and static obstacles as well as people in order to prevent and avoid and can also identify people and avoid collisions. Depending on the model, they can carry loads of between 100 and 1350 kilograms. They can thus be used for almost all intralogistics requirements, from material transport from the warehouse in assembly to transports within the assembly line to the staging of produced goods for shipping.

The integration of MiR robots into the XITO system facilitates the customisation of automated transport solutions based on MiR models. On the XITO platform, users will find solution modules that they can combine with the AMR from MiR. That can be used, for example, to integrate the mobile robots into the higher-level warehouse management system without a great deal of programming. Communication with machines and/or cooperation with stationary robots can also be easily implemented via the platform. An example of this is the XITO Success Story for Daimler TSS. In the use case described there, a stationary robot stacks boxes, which are then taken over by an autonomous transport robot from MiR and transferred to a labelling system.

"XITO and MiR share the same core values," Jörg Faber is pleased to report. "Both stand for user-friendliness in application. Both XITO's and MiR's users get automation solutions that are easy to use and cost-effective.  The combination of XITO and MiR opens up new possibilities, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, to integrate user-friendly autonomous transport systems into their processes. For this reason, we are very happy to be supported by XITO and to be part of the XITO marketplace".