August the 7th, 2024 – There are plenty of exciting companies coming out of this country, and one of them is the Croatian Romb Technologies, which is providing a helping automated hand to the logistics industry.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Ana Roksandic writes, logistics is an ideal sector for the employment of mobile robotics. The environment in that sector is perfect owing to its more or less controlled conditions, while for example the application of automated vehicles on the roads would be much more difficult to handle, due to constantly changing conditions. Logistics, due to its peculiarities, is a great sector for automation as a whole.
The Croatian Romb Technologies, a small domestic IT company that deals with software and hardware solutions for automated forklifts, was quick to understand and grasp this. Innovative founder Damjan Miklić emphasised that currently in Croatian logistics, there’s huge room for improvement in terms of automation.
“The global average is to sell one automated forklift for every hundred manual forklifts. Here in Croatia, at least according to my knowledge, there are currently only three autonomous forklifts operating,” said Miklić.
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It shouldn’t come as much of a shock then that the entire automation process in Croatian logistics still has significant room for growth. Larger companies are increasingly introducing automated systems such as warehouse robots and automated forklifts, but SMEs are slower to adopt these technologies due to high initial costs. Despite this, the pressure to increase efficiency and reduce operating costs encourages investment in domestic modernisation logistics. EU funds could play a vital role in speeding up this whole process, in order to achieve a wider application of automation in the coming years. At the Croatian Romb Technologies, where they themselves financed several of their ideas with EU money, they cite business that has two aspects – software and hardware – as one of their advantages over the competition.
“We’re primarily a software company and we have clients who come and purchase software from us that allows forklifts to drive themselves precisely. At the global level, we have competition from around five other companies working in the same field,” said the company’s founder.
However, even though they started out with software, they soon realised that having their own hardware would give them much more freedom for further innovation. This is primarily because when working for a client, it’s done exactly according to the order and the client’s wishes without the possibility of any sort of different solution. At Romb Technologies, they had ideas on how to improve the existing system, but they didn’t have a forklift on which they could test out their conceptual solutions. That’s how a partnership with the company VAR from Sesvete near Zagreb, which has a dealership and forklift service, was initially created.
“Our cooperation started five years ago. Originally, we only wanted to purchase a forklift that we needed for one competition from them, but we quickly clicked and the purchase turned into a joint company – V&R Automated Systems. We’re jointly developing smart forklifts that represent a complete automation solution within this company,” said Miklić.
According to him, last year they achieved around 150,000 euros in income. Their business model is based on the B2B concept, which means that their software is intended for companies engaged in the production of forklift trucks. Automated forklifts bring numerous benefits to the logistics sector, including increasing efficiency, reducing human error and improving workplace safety.
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Miklić founded the Croatian Romb Technologies company a little more than five years ago, but it was only this year that they managed to validate their business model. They recently agreed on the first significant deal in the domain of software for a client in Spain, and they’re increasingly present in neighbouring Slovenia as well. In addition, they have sold one automated forklift so far, and are in negotiations to sell five more.
The integration of these technologies enables companies to handle cargo more quickly and precisely, which is crucial for meeting increasingly stringent standards in the supply chain. Miklić cites the automation of routine and repetitive jobs with low added value as the advantages of the products behind his company.
“The biggest advantage of our technology is that it automates some logistics tasks that are very repetitive, boring and to some extent dangerous for human workers. In addition, the automated forklift can work 24 hours a day. The robot doesn’t have to go on annual leave, nor does it have a problem working the third shift. In logistics, it’s difficult to find those willing to work the third shift, so machines are great for that,” said Miklić.
At Romb Technologies, they are happy to have the opportunity to work on robotics innovations and to slowly gather clients both inside and outside the country.
