Les Morgan, chief operating officer Sudima Hotels, with a robot operating at Sudima Auckland Airport. Photo / Dean Purcell
Les Morgan, chief operating officer Sudima Hotels, with a robot operating at Sudima Auckland Airport. Photo / Dean Purcell
Sudima Hotels boss Les Morgan says the company has had to change its rules around room service after introducing robots to deliver it.
They’re so popular with guests who like to take photos with them that Sudima now has a minimum room service order so they’re not constantly doing repeatvisits.
When they’re delivering room service, they’re models of discretion.
“First of all, you can order through the QR code and not have to talk to anyone,” said Morgan.
“It means that when the robot comes you don’t need to be dressed. The robot doesn’t have a camera - that helps with discretion in some cases.”
Morgan said in the restaurant, the delivery bots have been popular with customers and allowed staff more time to interact with guests.
“If anything, it allows them to do that more of that because after the robot takes the dishes they can spend an extra minute or two talking to you about your day,” he said.
“Almost all customers love the robots and for the odd person who doesn’t care for the whirls and light chirping noises, the team ensures they receive exclusively human service.”
Guests and staff have been fascinated by how the robot sensors make sure they don’t bump into random tables or small children - maintaining a sense of calm and order and ensuring things run smoothly.
The family-owned hotel business got its first robot in 2022. It didn’t want to replace existing staff.
“Robots create efficiency and improve productivity, but they don’t replace people.”
The group employs about 650 staff but it would mean it wouldn’t have to hire as many people when it was back at full capacity or expanding.
A robot operating at Sudima Auckland Airport. Photo / Dean Purcell
Robots had helped to make improvements of some roles but replaced none and increased productivity across the group by between 10 per cent and 15 per cent.
In the restaurant, children often ask for photos with a machine called “Bella Bot”, which will sometimes be dispatched later to their rooms to surprise them with a Sudima teddy bear or an icecream.
Bella helps open the restaurant at 4.30am for early flight departures and the buffet is set up 60 per cent faster as it opens the kitchen doors and delivers the breakfast items in one trip.
Sudima also helped develop technology for its housekeeping bot to be able to summon the service elevator.
When housekeeping staff are cleaning a room, the used linen and towels, glassware and rubbish gets placed in the robot, which is sitting at the door, and it then heads back to the central service room on the fourth floor.
By the time they’ve finished the next room, it will be back to pick up those items.
“On average, we are saving five hours per day in manual tasks, and by removing the tedious and time-consuming running back and forth that humans have typically done, we can free people up to do more productive work and expand their skill sets into other areas.”
One staff member was now developing skills to operate the fleet of robots, said Morgan.
The hospitality and accommodation industry was the optimal proving ground for artificial intelligence and robotics, said Morgan.
“Having experimented successfully with robots and AI in a busy customer-facing company with more than 650 staff and two virtual assistants, and with plenty more integration to go, we have garnered some important lessons about how to introduce the new wave of technology while protecting irreplaceable human talent.”
At Sudima Auckland Airport, a vacuum-cleaning robot cleans all the public areas.
There are staff responsible for this work, including a housekeeping manager.
“For the manager, the robot is now her 2IC, and for our staff member whose role involves keeping public areas clean - who has been with the business for a long time - she is never going to be replaced by a robot.”
Robots were “ultra-manageable” and rich in reportable data.
“A perennial struggle in business is how to measure the output of employees. There is no such difficulty with robots, which can be tracked as digital units and also visually.”
The hotel was building a command centre with large TV screens which connect to the existing hotel camera network and the robot app, so it can monitor all the robots as they move through the property and return to the central storeroom.
Pudu Robotics has sold 70,000 robots worldwide since 2016.
Grant Bradley has been working at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.
