How is Vistan NextGen's 'Flunkey' revolutionizing the service sector with Robot As A Service (RaaS)?

Vistan NextGen, a Hyderabad based start-up has forayed into developing a home-grown brand Robot – Flunkey. As the new wave of automation kick-started and with COVID accelerating the digital adoption and automation, Vistan has stepped into a new phase of designing, customising, manufacturing and supply of robots to boost social, service and industrial production.

Rama Raju Singam, a UK returned entrepreneur cum roboticist and technology expert, with his robots aims to create a working atmosphere wherein robots and humans can co-work and co-exist under the same roof. The company aims to introduce a series of robots in the next one year, custom-designed not only for varied social, service and industrial work but also for numerous consumer interface tasks. Amongst the first set of robots, the company has introduced Flunkey as a service robot for business and consumer interface.

About Flunkey

Flunkey Robots are fully autonomous service bots revolutionizing the service sector. “We invented Flunkey with an idea to reduce human intervention in tedious and hectic tasks. This will ultimately help the service sector to become smarter and as safe as possible. The frontline workers in every business and in particular those working in hospital and clinics come in direct contact with customers. They are exposed to major risk. Thus, Flunkey takes the higher responsibility of not only dealing with customers seamlessly but also guiding them in the best possible way in the given working environment. Flunkey becomes the need of the hour in the current COVID scenario, as the purpose arises to nullify human interaction and social distancing becomes a norm, especially in the service sector,” states the founder.

The founder also states that Flunkey Robots can work for various industries like the Healthcare Industry, COVD-19 Specials, Hotel and Restaurant, the Banking Industry. They can further act as Educational Robots for Teaching Industry.

CiOL had some questions for the founder, who states, “Our robots are equipped to perform more complex and sensitive jobs seamlessly. They can also outperform humans in terms of time, accuracy and efforts”. Thus, the proud founder of the Flunkey Robots, Mr Rama Raju Singam sheds some interesting points in conversation with CiOL.

CiOL: What are some variants of Flunkey?

Flunkey Robots

Flunkey Robots in the Healthcare Industry

Sushruth Robot and Nightingale Robots can primarily assist the patients in stepping into hospitals and clinics. The Sushruth Robot helps in booking appointments, collecting consultation fees, sanitising customer’s hands and disinfecting the body. It can perform all of these tasks in a couple of minutes and print the appointment receipt on the other hand. With this, there is zero-intervention of a receptionist at the hospital lobby.

Nightingale Robot comes as an AI-enabled interactive solution with highly integrated contactless technology. It can track early symptoms of COVID-19. The robot guides the patients to the respective areas in the hospital for consultation. It also helps in performing some of the preliminary nurse tasks. These include testing body temperature, heartbeat, respiratory rate, blood oxygen level etc.

Healthcare Industry (COVID-19) Specials

The Flunkey Autopure robot constantly sanitizes the living area, thus helping in keeping the surroundings safe and clean. It uses an autonomous UV based disinfection facility where it is difficult for humans to reach.

The Flunkey Covid-19 Steward helps mitigate pathogen spread and protect healthcare workers and also to reduce the burden for patients, Flunkey Covid-19 Steward comes as a rescuer by undertaking crucial tasks like supplying medicines and delivering food to the patients.

Hotel & Restaurant Industry

Flunkey Bearer assists the customers end-to-end – from selecting the best dishes from the menu to displaying the special offers run by the restaurant, from closing the financial transaction to recording the customer feedback through an application seamlessly. Flunkey Steward is specially programmed to undertake the task of delivering pre-ordered food to the customers at the right table.

Banking Industry

Flunkey Banking Assistant robot acts as a multi-task agent and helps the customers in filling the application forms from the digital menu, gives out information specific to exclusive offers, acts as an e-KYC facilitator and also make special announcements from time to time during the banking hours.

Educational Robots for Teaching Industry

Flunkey Vajra Acharya robot takes the learning experience to the next level with augmented reality. It helps students learn better as they see, visualize and experience things virtually.

CiOL: How can robotics replace physical education?

Singham: Robots cannot completely replace physical education. However, they can be very helpful and play important role in the education of young people. Robots can become a part of educational institutions in multiple ways. They can answer some of the basic enquiries at the reception when attended by the parents or students. They can monitor school premises or students behavioural pattern in critical areas. Thus, they can timely report to the administration department. They can also assist teachers in the process of teaching, registering attendance, thus becoming a critical component of the school environment and giving the best educational experience.

CiOL: How long will it take for major industries and sectors to adopt 100% automation?

Singham: Globally, automation in key industries is scaling up rapidly at a faster pace; we still need to see the adaptation by the Indian industries, especially at the factories and large facilities. The government is taking considerable steps by introducing industry-friendly policies and pandemic took us to a different and dynamic shift; wherein more and more companies are willing to introduce robots as part of their service offerings; avoiding human intervention in critical areas. Consider the growing technical skillsets among the general public and faster adaptation by millennials; we would not be too far from witnessing 100% adaptation of automation in many sectors. This includes educational institutions, healthcare, banking, auto and other sectors.

CiOL: Influence of AI/ML on daily human lives?

Singham: Artificial intelligence and machine learning are like a boon for mankind in every sphere of life. Whether, a product or service-centric industry, the adoption of AI-ML will produce a definite and measurable result-oriented outcome. In the modern world, we are already seeing the positive impact of AI and ML, especially in the healthcare sector, where robots are being considered widely in detecting and performing tasks that are not humanly possible. In many ways, AI can help humans to make their lives easier and secure.

CiOL: Best robotic practices when using the robot?

Singham: Best robotic practices comes with the adaption of robots for various applications. Robots come in handy in multiple ways and it is upto us how we intend to put them to practice in real-life scenarios.

CiOL: Your customer support service?

Singham: All our products are made in India. We intend to provide the best in class after sales and customer service to our customers. We are enabling 24/7 support to our customers and maintain accurate SLA (Service Level Agreement) to meet our customer expectations.