How to scope an autonomous cleaning programme for a New Zealand facility

Autonomous cleaning programmes that disappoint were usually bought before they were scoped. A good scope for a shopping centre, airport terminal, hospital or aged care facility turns the building into a set of zones, each with a floor type, a cleaning mode, a time window, a dock and a person responsible.

How much floor do you have to clean?

Start with cleanable floor area, not gross lettable area or building area. Walk the site with floor plans and mark out open floor that is cleaned on a repeating schedule: malls and food courts, terminal concourses and gate lounges, hospital corridors and lift lobbies, care home corridors, lounges and dining rooms. Exclude tenancies, back-of-house rooms you do not clean, and anything cluttered with furniture that moves every day.

Then split that area by floor type, because the floor determines which machine you need. Record vinyl and linoleum, polished concrete, terrazzo, ceramic and porcelain tile (note deep grout lines), carpet and carpet tile, and entrance matting. Note transitions, thresholds, ramps, expansion and seismic joints, and drainage grates, since these are where robots slow down, stop or need a wider turning path. Entrances matter more in a wet climate: mats and the first few metres of hard floor inside each door often need their own plan on rainy days.

Which cleaning modes does each zone need?

Commercial cleaning robots generally offer some combination of the modes below. Many large sites need more than one, and the mix changes by zone.

Mode	Suits	Watch for
Dust mop	Polished concrete, vinyl, terrazzo between wet cleans	Does not remove sticky or wet soiling
Sweep	Car park levels, service corridors and loading areas with coarse debris	Dust near food outlets and clinical areas
Vacuum	Carpet in gate lounges, offices, care home lounges and hotel-style corridors	Loose cables, rugs and edging strips
Scrub (wet)	Hard floors in malls, concourses, corridors and food courts	Water use, drying time, slip risk while wet
Combined sweep and scrub	Large hard floors with mixed debris	Tank capacity sets the zone size

Wet scrubbing leaves a wet floor for a period after each pass, and in public areas the people at risk include shoppers, travellers, patients and visitors as well as staff. The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 requires a business to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that other people are not put at risk by its work. Record when each zone is wet, how it dries, and what signage or exclusion applies while people are nearby.

When can the robots clean?

Robots slow down and stop around people, so the cleaning window matters as much as the machine. One manufacturer’s deployment guide suggests moving floor care to another time of day if it is normally done while the facility is busy.

Each type of site has its own pattern. Shopping centres usually have a window after close and before opening. Airports are busy from early morning to late evening, so scopes focus on overnight lulls and gaps between departure peaks. Hospitals have corridors in use around the clock, which suits shorter, frequent routes rather than one long run. Aged care homes are quietest in the middle of the night, but that is also when noise matters most, so check the robot’s sound level in each mode near bedrooms.

The same guide suggests breaking large spaces into smaller zones and keeping routes short enough to match the water tank, rather than teaching one long route across a whole floor. In practice, that means sizing each zone to what one tank and one battery charge can cover inside its window.

Where will robots dock, refill and drain?

This is where scopes most often fall short. For each zone, identify:

• a dock or parking spot out of public paths, escape routes and final exits
• a power outlet within reach, and whether it is on a suitable circuit
• a clean water supply and a drain point for dirty water, or an auto-refill station if the platform supports one
• wireless or mobile network coverage at the dock and along routes, so alerts and reports get through
• lift and automatic door access for multi-level sites, and whether the lift contractor will support integration

Dirty water belongs in the wastewater system, through a cleaner’s sink or another approved point. Never empty a tank into a car park sump or stormwater grate. As Northland Regional Council puts it, stormwater is not treated, and putting anything other than rainwater in a stormwater drain can be a serious source of pollution, and is illegal. If you are unsure, check your council’s trade waste rules.

Lifts and automatic doors are specified systems under the Building Act 2004 and its regulations, recorded on the building’s compliance schedule and covered each year by the building warrant of fitness. If robots will call lifts or open doors, involve the building owner and the relevant contractors early, so any connection is agreed with the people who maintain and certify those systems.

Mapping, no-go zones and hazards

Robots are mapped by driving or guiding them through the site, usually when it is clear of people and temporary obstacles. Routes taught around objects that later move can leave gaps, so map during a quiet period with the floor in its normal state.

Mark no-go zones deliberately. Common examples are escalator landings and travelators, stair heads and open edges, glass balustrades and full-height glazing, loading docks, baggage reclaim belts, food court cooking areas, MRI suites, operating theatres, isolation rooms and secure dementia units. Glass and mirrored surfaces can confuse some sensors, so flag them during mapping and test routes near them. Plan to remap after refits, tenancy changes or new fixtures.

At Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown, Dunedin and Invercargill airports, the boundary between public areas and the security and security-enhanced (airside) areas is controlled, and airport identity cards govern who may work airside. Keep landside robots on the landside, and agree with the airport how anyone who attends to an airside robot is cleared or escorted.

Hospitals and aged residential care

Public and private hospitals with overnight inpatients, and aged residential care providers, must meet Ngā Paerewa Health and Disability Services Standard (NZS 8134:2021). Its infection prevention section covers the infection prevention programme and the care environment. A cleaning robot becomes part of that programme, so ask the infection prevention team to confirm which areas it may clean, which products and pads it uses, how it is cleaned between areas, and where it must not go during an outbreak.

In aged care, robots share corridors with residents using walking frames and wheelchairs, some of whom may find a moving machine unsettling. Wide corridors, clear signage and predictable timing help more than speed.

How does it fit with the cleaning contractor?

Most large facilities outsource cleaning, and the programme depends on that relationship. Agree up front who starts routes, who clears obstacles and responds to assist alerts, who empties and refills tanks, who reports damage, and who receives the coverage reports. Update the cleaning specification so it describes outcomes and frequencies by zone, not only labour hours.

At Christchurch Airport, contractor OCS New Zealand introduced an autonomous scrubber and a robotic vacuum in 2022 to support its cleaning team. OCS said the robots took on repetitive floor work so staff could concentrate on touch points and detailed cleaning, and a team member who had been a trolley collector became its robotic administrator. Plan for the same arrangement, with robots on the contractor’s roster and named people accountable for them.

The facility owner or manager, the contractor and the equipment supplier can all have health and safety duties for the same cleaning work. HSWA requires them to work together on those duties and to engage the workers affected, so bring the cleaning team into route planning before the robots arrive.

How should you measure coverage?

Before deployment, record a baseline: current audit scores, complaint logs and how often each zone is actually cleaned. After deployment, most platforms report area cleaned, run time, route completion and where the robot stopped or needed help. Some show planned against actual paths, which makes missed sections easy to spot and trace to obstacles, timing or route design.

Review these reports weekly at first, then monthly. Keep your visual audits running, because machine data shows where the robot went, not whether the floor meets your standard.

What do people still do?

Robots cover open floors on a schedule. People still handle spills and their signage, edges, corners and under seating, stairs, escalators, lifts, amenities, glass and detailing. In hospitals and care homes, frequently touched surfaces such as door handles, bed rails, call bells and taps are cleaned by people, and blood and body fluid spills need a trained person with the right products. Staff also prepare the floor, moving bins and signage and clearing obstacles before a route starts.

Scoping checklist

Item	What to capture	Why it matters
Cleanable area	Square metres by zone, excluding tenancies and cluttered rooms	Sets fleet size and route length
Floor types	Surface, finish, grout depth, transitions, seismic joints, ramps	Decides cleaning mode and machine type
Cleaning modes	Dust mop, sweep, vacuum, scrub per zone	Determines consumables and drying time
Cleaning windows	Hours per zone with low foot traffic, and noise limits at night	Robots slow and stop around people
Docking points	Location, power, floor space, clear of escape routes	Avoids long transits and obstruction
Water and drain	Clean water supply, wastewater disposal point, refill method	Tank capacity limits zone size, and stormwater is off limits
Network	Wi-Fi or mobile coverage at docks and on routes	Alerts, assists and reporting
Lifts and doors	Multi-level needs, lift and door contractors, compliance schedule	Integration effort and approvals
No-go zones	Escalators, stairs, glass, docks, airside boundaries, clinical areas	Safety and access control
Infection prevention	Areas, products, robot cleaning, outbreak rules	Fits the facility’s Ngā Paerewa programme
Contractor roles	Who starts, assists, refills, reports and audits	Accountability after handover
Health and safety	Shared duties, risk assessment, worker engagement	Meets HSWA obligations
Coverage measures	Baseline audits, report format, review cadence	Shows whether the programme is working
Human task list	Spills, touch points, edges, amenities, detailing	Keeps standards where robots do not reach

Robotx can help you work through this scope on your own site before any equipment decision is made.