Two and a half million square feet — spanning across five city blocks and 13 stories tall — is a lot of ground to cover. When the job involves hauling heavy carts filled with soiled linens or waste, it can quickly become taxing on workers. But a fleet of robots is lightening the load.
The Environmental Services (EVS) team at Froedtert Hospital, the academic medical center for the Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network, uses autonomous robots, called TUGs, to pick up, transport and drop off the heavy carts so staff can focus on other important sanitation responsibilities and avoid strain on their bodies.
“Our ergonomic studies showed it takes about 25 lbs. of force just to pull hard enough to get the filled carts moving,” said Mathew Gnirk, director of Environmental and Linen Services at Froedtert Hospital and Froedtert Bluemound Rehabilitation Hospital. “To keep it moving, you need 10 to 15 lbs. of force on your shoulder the whole time you are pulling. It’s a lot of physical effort over a lot of mileage.”
Robots Travel Thousands of Miles a Year
The name “TUG” is in the spirit of a tugboat, a powerful boat that tows and pushes other boats and objects. A fleet of five TUGs have been in use on the Froedtert Hospital campus since August 2023. The robots are a crucial part of facility operations during a time when typical routes to trash compactors and utility rooms for soiled linens are temporarily cut off due to construction of the new proton therapy space, located adjacent to the Clinical Cancer Center.
In 2024, the TUGs traveled more than 9,700 miles and completed more than 78,000 deliveries. This includes transporting more than 6 million lbs. of trash, 740,000 lbs. of recycling and 370,000 lbs. of regulated medical waste. In fact, Aethon, the company that manufactures the TUG robots, ranked Froedtert Hospital No. 1 in the EVS category for “most miles traveled” and “most deliveries made” for a single robot in one year. A single TUG at Froedtert Hospital traveled the equivalent of 3.7 million steps.
“By using the robots, we are reducing the risk of workplace injuries, supporting patient care and fulfilling compliance requirements for quality and safety standards by ensuring there are no waste backups at any time in our facility,” said Gnirk.
Environmental Services Team Manages Robot Fleet
Gnirk’s team works hard to ensure the robots are running efficiently and smoothly throughout the hospital. EVS supervisors manage the robot workloads, which involves assigning jobs to the queue and monitoring the interface from a computer workstation or tablet for any issues, such as obstacles blocking a robot’s path. When the robots were onboarded, EVS educated hospital team members on how to interact with the TUGs so as not to disrupt their tasks. EVS also worked with the Patient Communications team to post signs in key areas of the hospital so patients would understand what the robots are and how to navigate near them.
“The TUGs have forward-facing radar so they can ‘see’ when they are moving down a hallway,” said Johnny Stewart, EVS supervisor. “They are programmed not to enter an elevator that has people in it, and they can maneuver slowly around objects in their path.”
Expanding Robot Responsibilities at Froedtert Hospital
The five robots at Froedtert Hospital are operating at maximum capacity. Their only downtime is when they need to dock to charge so they can be fresh for the next shift. There are plans to expand the types of tasks the TUGs handle on campus, which could lead to more robots in the future. More than 140 hospitals in the country use TUG robots, and aside from soiled linens and waste, applications include transporting and delivering medications, laboratory specimens and meals.
“We are in conversations with our Pharmacy, Supply Chain and Nutrition Services teams to understand how TUGs could improve their logistics and operations,” Gnirk said. “For any new construction on campus, we are working with the Facilities team to integrate TUG technology into the build, so as the new construction comes online, there are TUG dedicated features, such as easy access to soil rooms.”
Gnirk and his team said the autonomous robot technology has been more than a time and step saver, it has been a morale boost for EVS.
“Some of our most difficult days were during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Chris Garcia, EVS supervisor. “If we had the robots then, it would have been a gamechanger. Our EVS team is made up of only 22 people. Everyone works hard and appreciates the support from the TUGs so much.”
