With the loss of the United Airlines hub in Cleveland, LeanDog Software owner Jon Stahl say's he's discovered a way perhaps to cut down on the size of his team while traveling to visit clients. It's a robot named Gilligan -- made by Double Robotics – that roams about the LeanDog boat, checking in with team members on a project.

The investment might be one solution to reduce air travel for businesses that go to customers or bring customers to their offices.

Stahl got Gilligan in January to cut down on the number of team members he needs when traveling to call on customers. “Instead of taking a large team to customer sites, we can send less people and then drive the robot around the boat and talk to anyone we need to,” Stahl explains. “I don’t need to have as many people travel with me just in case I need them in a meeting.”

Gilligan also helps Stahl stay in touch with his staff when he’s on the road for long stretches of time. “I can also use the robot to look at our visual management walls, attend our daily standup meetings, and just make an appearance,” he says. “We have been on the road for three weeks straight, and it’s nice to pop in when we can.”

Stahl finds the robot to be a more flexible alternative to video conferencing, which requires scheduling a time for the meeting. “With Gilligan, we can wake him up and drive him around the boat and talk to someone at any time,” he explains. “Soon, we can even drive it to the recharging docking bay. We tried to use Skype phones in the past and gave them to our customers – we bought 20 of them, but you need someone to answer the phone, so that solution didn’t work so well."

The only disadvantage to Gilligan is that he can’t climb stairs; he has wheels for legs.

LeanDog has a client in San Francisco who also is trying out the robot. Together, the two companies are experimenting with their robots to see if they might replace, or reduce, travel and improve communication.

Source: Jon Stahl
Writer: Karin Connelly