Chile: Leading outdoor industrial automation

Most industrial sites, like mines, forestry plants and logistics terminals face inefficiencies, safety risks and high operational costs due to the manual handling of large fleets. Chilean company, West Ingeniería, set out to automate these complex outdoor operations even under harsh environmental conditions, ensuring reliability, precision and safety.

In the Eureka project Outdoor IntraLog Robot, West Ingeniería partnered with Finnish company GIM to develop an autonomous robotic intralogistics system for outdoor vehicle control, along with a fleet management software that optimises vehicle transportation across large industrial complexes. The system and software contribute to safe, efficient and real-time coordination of heavy vehicles in mining, forestry and construction operations.

Eureka embodies a long-term vision of innovation: thinking about the future, fostering cooperation and improving quality of life through research and development. This mindset explains why countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and Germany consistently rank among the world’s 15 most innovative economies.

Guillermo Soriano – Chief Executive Officer at West Ingeniería

The project combined both partners’ capabilities in industrial software and robotics: West Ingeniería designed and implemented the software and integration architecture, featuring real-time fleet management, AI-based routing, telemetry and control modules; GIM provided the automation layer, including 3D LiDAR-based simultaneous localisation and mapping navigation and obstacle detection. Together, the companies achieved centimetre-level precision and adaptability moving heavy vehicles on many terrains and in variable weather conditions.

Through Eureka and the Chilean Economic Development Agency (Corfo), West Ingeniería gained access to personalised advisory services, international matchmaking mechanisms and funding programmes that made this transcontinental collaboration possible. It was through Corfo’s business innovation missions that Guillermo Soriano, West Ingeniería’s Chief Executive Officer, met GIM’s head of operations who is Chilean and the only foreign employee at the Finnish company. Soriano explains, “this coincidence sparked our collaboration. We shared results remotely, and everything worked perfectly despite the project taking place in the middle of the pandemic.”

Outdoor IntraLog Robot united the partners in a shared vision of advancing sustainable industrial automation. It was a balanced alliance that facilitated technology and knowledge transfer in artificial intelligence, automation and advanced logistics, as well as training and joint product validation in both countries.

Today, West Ingeniería is perceived as a leader in outdoor robotic logistics software in Latin America, unlocking new markets in Uruguay and Brazil. Although the pandemic delayed local market entry, Soriano stated that with private investment, the technology could soon be implemented in large companies. GIM is also commercialising its project output in Europe. For the Finnish partner, Outdoor IntraLog Robot sparked interest from major companies like Unilever and Celulosa Arauco.

Soriano highlighted, “automation can be successfully applied in different industries, although limited access to advanced technologies remains a barrier.” With West Ingeniería’s new software, the forestry, mining, logistics and aviation industries become far safer and more sustainable. Outdoor IntraLog Robot successfully transformed applied research into a commercial product for fleet management that enhances safety, productivity and environmental performance across multiple sectors.