MAKELIS Automates Daily Floor Cleaning at Its Production Hall with the Gausium Beetle

Overview

MAKELIS, a Greek manufacturer of industrial equipment for the food processing industry, has automated the daily cleaning of its production hall with the Gausium Beetle, a heavy-duty autonomous sweeper deployed by Vamvacas Industrial Equipment S.A., Gausium’s partner in Greece.

The production hall is a demanding environment: forklifts and motorised equipment move through it all day, pallets are loaded and unloaded continuously, and metal fabrication work leaves a steady load of debris on the concrete floor. Cleaning used to happen by hand, whenever staff could fit it in. Today the Beetle runs a mapped, full-coverage route twice every 24 hours, after production stops — turning cleaning from an occasional manual task into a scheduled, autonomous operation.

• Customer: MAKELIS
• Industry: Industrial manufacturing / Food processing equipment
• Location: Greece
• Product deployed: Gausium Beetle
• Deployed by: Vamvacas Industrial Equipment S.A. (Gausium’s channel partner in Greece)
• Use Scenario: Production hall

The Challenge

MAKELIS designs and builds machinery for the processing of seafood and seafood by-products, red meat, poultry and dairy, serving customers in Greece and internationally. Its scope runs from mechanical design and standalone machines to complete processing lines, conveying systems and automation applications — the kind of work where organisation, efficiency and operational consistency are not optional.

In a plant that builds equipment for the food industry, floor cleanliness is not a matter of appearance. It is part of daily operations.

But the production hall generated dirt faster than anyone could clear it. Constant forklift traffic, daily pallet handling, a bare concrete floor and ongoing metalwork left behind a continuous accumulation of dust, iron filings, wood fragments from pallets and general production waste.

The real challenge was not removing the debris once. It was keeping a demanding production space consistently clean without interrupting the work going on inside it.

Left unaddressed, the situation created four concrete problems:

• Poorer working conditions for production staff
• Increased accident risk on a floor covered with loose debris
• Dirt transfer onto equipment, products and outbound packages
• No stable cleaning process — only a constant, unmet need for one

How cleaning was handled before

Cleaning was done manually, with a broom and dustpan, by production staff whenever there was a gap in the day. In a hall with heavy human activity and large fabrications under construction, that approach could not keep pace with the space.

What MAKELIS needed was clear:

• Cleaning every day, without exception
• Operation outside working hours
• A healthier, safer working environment
• Time and cost savings on cleaning labour

The Solution

After assessing the plant’s real operating conditions, Vamvacas Industrial Equipment S.A. proposed the Gausium Beetle, an autonomous sweeper built for industrial environments.

The deployment was designed so that cleaning would slot into the facility’s daily rhythm without requiring any human involvement during production. It included:

• Installation and commissioning of the robot
• Mapping of the hall and creation of a cleaning programme covering the full available area
• Scheduled operation twice per 24 hours, after production ends
• Staff training on daily operation and maintenance
• A maintenance contract for ongoing support

Gausium Beetle with the Docking Station

Product featured: Gausium Beetle

Beetle is Gausium’s autonomous sweeper for warehouses, factories and large-scale industrial facilities. It navigates with 3D LiDAR combined with RGB and RGB-D cameras, which lets it hold a precise, repeatable route in cluttered, high-traffic or poorly lit spaces — exactly the conditions of a working production hall.

A high-power suction system handles everything from fine dust and sand to paper scraps and wood chips, while HEPA filtration with automatic filter cleaning after each task keeps captured dust in the bin rather than back in the air. With a 750 mm cleaning width, a 45 L waste bin, zero-distance edge cleaning and autonomous docking and charging, Beetle runs its full route unattended and returns to its station when the job is done.

Because the programme runs outside working hours, the hall is cleaned end to end without a single interruption to production.

The Results

The difference was visible almost immediately. Within the first days of operation, the condition of the floor and the overall appearance of the hall improved noticeably — and cleaning shifted from a fragmented manual chore to a stable, organised, autonomous process.

• Consistent daily cleaning. The hall is swept twice every 24 hours, regardless of how busy the day was or who was available.
• Autonomous operation. The need for manual sweeping has been substantially reduced, freeing production staff for their actual work.
• Better working conditions. Less debris on the floor means a cleaner, safer environment for everyone on site.
• Less airborne dust. Controlling dirt at floor level improved overall cleanliness across the hall, including products and packages awaiting dispatch.
• Time and cost savings. Cleaning now runs as a fixed process instead of absorbing labour hours every day.
• Remote management. Monitoring and control give the team far more flexibility in managing the equipment.

Looking Ahead

The MAKELIS deployment is a clear example of automated cleaning applied to a genuinely demanding production environment — one where daily operations generate constant, heavy cleaning needs and where manual methods had reached their limit.

With the Beetle in place, cleaning has become a dependable part of the plant’s routine rather than something that competes with production for time and people. For Vamvacas Industrial Equipment S.A., every deployment starts from understanding what the customer actually needs on the floor; the MAKELIS project is another case of technology delivering a practical answer in a hard industrial setting, backed by proper technical guidance and continuous support.

About Vamvacas Industrial Equipment S.A.

Founded in 1935, Vamvacas Industrial Equipment S.A. is one of Greece’s leading providers of professional and industrial equipment solutions, with headquarters in Piraeus and a strong presence across Greece and Bulgaria.  For more than 90 years, the company has built a legacy of reliability, technical expertise, and superior after-sales service, delivering end-to-end solutions that meet the highest standards of safety and efficiency.  Operating across seven strategic sectors — including packaging machinery & consumables, compressed air systems, material handling and warehouse equipment, protective packaging equipment, fastening tools, professional cleaning systems and food packaging — Vamvacas combines global innovation with local insight to empower businesses of every size, ensuring high-performance products, comprehensive after-sales support, and long-term value creation.

About Gausium

Gausium robots are deployed in more than 60 countries worldwide. Gausium is a leading company of AI-powered autonomous cleaning solutions with more than 9,400 customers in more than 70 countries and regions. Products and services of Gausium include commercial floor cleaning robots, docking stations, cloud platform and application software, and more in the pipeline. Driven by a vision to lead the intelligent digital transformation of the cleaning and service industry, Gausium offers the world’s most comprehensive portfolio of commercial cleaning robots, empowering individuals to work smarter and lead more fulfilling lives.