Post by ANYbotics

A 150-year-old cement plant put a robot on the night shift. In 16 months, it has more than paid for itself: $660,000 in avoided shutdown costs. Here's how Vigier Ciment got there, and what autonomous inspection caught that manual rounds and fixed sensors didn't. Since January 2025, #ANYmal has patrolled Vigier's Péry plant, covering 3 mills across 6 floors and completing 33,000 inspections at 450 inspection points. In that time it delivered concrete results: ✅ Caught a cracked crusher foundation before it forced a week-long shutdown ✅ Flagged an overheating bearing early enough to fix it on a planned day shift instead of an overnight emergency ✅ Surfaced energy and CO₂ losses from filter leaks that were invisible from the plant floor However, for Robert Christinger, Vigier's Head of Automation, the reason to move early on autonomous inspections is bigger than any single finding: “Our goal is to make Vigier the most innovative cement plant in Switzerland. If we didn’t do this now, we’d be way behind in 10 years.” — And of course, none of this happens without the people behind it. Huge thanks to the Vigier Ciment team for the partnership: Ion Stoian (Head of Maintenance) and Robert Christinger for backing the program from the start, and Denis Schaad and Joey Plomb, the maintenance technicians who run ANYmal every day. And on our side, Brecht Vandekerkhove (Customer Success Manager) and Hugo Marmonier (Field Engineer), who got it deployed and keep it running on site. #autonomousinspection #robotics #industrialinspection #safety

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