1. Who are you and where do you come from?
We are sewts, a deep tech robotics startup from Munich. Since 2019, we have been working on automation solutions for handling easily deformable materials. With our technology, we can automate industrial processes that previously could only be carried out manually.

2. Please briefly describe your product or solutions
In the future, we will use our technology to automate clothing production, but we are initially starting with a use case in the area of industrial laundries that wash and dry textiles in a highly automated environment to handle large volumes of dirty laundry. There are also machines in this process that fold the laundry. But they have one major disadvantage: each of these machines requires an employee who manually spreads out the laundry and feeds it in without creasing it. Human labor is associated with high costs: 30 percent of the personnel costs in laundries alone are attributable to the loading of the folding machines. And there is another problem: the manual filling of the folding machines is a very tiring and unpleasant job. Industrial laundries struggle to find skilled workers and could double production if enough workers were available. This is where our VELUM system comes into play. VELUM introduces towels and similar linens made of terry cloth into existing folding machines, thereby closing this important automation gap.

3. What was or is your biggest challenge?
A number of robot and AI-based solutions can handle solid, dimensionally stable materials such as metals that support processes in the manufacturing and processing industries. However, automating processes for easily deformable materials still poses an enormous challenge because the geometry of the object to be processed is constantly changing. Our image processing software and our AI are the key technologies to master this challenge.

4. Which are your target markets/target groups?
With our first product, we are closing an automation gap in industrial laundries, but our technology is interesting for anyone who wants to automate a process that has to do with easily deformable materials. Our second application, which we will start developing in 2022, is in the area of e-commerce returns handling.

5. What are your goals at HANNOVER MESSE?
We would like to establish contacts and present our automation solutions. Of course, we are happy when we can find new customers through the trade fair, but cooperation to develop potential new applications is also very interesting for us Our technology can be used for many different industrial processes and we are always looking for partnerships for new developments.