Creating greenhouse automation with a human touch

The future of horticulture may not be about replacing people with machines, but about letting both do what they do best. That's the philosophy guiding Viemose DGS that has teamed up with robotics company 4XROBOTS to make greenhouse work more meaningful for the people who work in it.

Labor shortage and rising costs are very real pains for greenhouse growers all over the world. Automation is often named as the solution to these issues, but it must be the right type of automation that will help enable the available workforce to do more meaningful tasks and make greater value to the businesses.

CEO of Viemose DGS, Floris Berghout, believes that greenhouses owners should strive to make jobs in horticulture more attractive to help sort out the problem of labor shortage.

"No one wakes up excited to spend eight hours doing the same manual task repeatedly. Machines should do the boring stuff. People should be operating, maintaining and innovating. That's how you make horticulture an attractive career for the next generation," says Berghout.

Scalability in investments is key
For decades, Viemose DGS has been a familiar name in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe as one of the first suppliers of Moving Gutter Systems. The company's machines helped growers streamline the production of leafy greens long before vertical farming.

Scalability is Viemose's trademark. Its greenhouse technologies are designed like Lego bricks: growers can start with a modest setup and expand step by step. Old systems can be refurbished, new modules added. The result is flexibility for businesses that can't afford to gamble on costly all-or-nothing investments.

"We want to make it easy and financially manageable for the growers to scale up and evolve on their operations. The same goes for automation - It need not be all or nothing in the first go. Smart robots like collaborative robots are a good way of implementing automation little by little," explains the CEO of Viemose DGS and continues:

"Collaborative robots – or cobots – have the advantage that they do not need to be fenced in because they automatically stop if something gets in their way. This makes it easy to integrate into existing systems step by step. They can work safely alongside humans. Automation in greenhouses is already integrated into many businesses. But with cobots like these, automation is getting smarter and safer."

Enter 4XROBOTS
A new step in the journey towards delivering reliable automation solutions for growers is partnering with 4XROBOTS, a Danish robotics company specializing in adaptable cobots. For growers, this means a robot that can be mounted above existing systems, like Moving Gutter Systems from Viemose, without needing expensive infrastructure changes. It becomes an extra pair of hands for repetitive tasks, working safely side by side with staff.

"The key is flexibility," says Michael Mortensen, CCO of 4XROBOTS. "We believe that Growers don't want five different robots for five different very specialized jobs. They want a reliable machine that adapts to their needs during the day. Something that can easily be moved around in the system wherever it's needed"

For Viemose, that philosophy clicks with its own. One robot becomes a component in a larger infrastructure: an extra tool in the toolbox.

For employees in greenhouses, cobots mean less time spent on monotonous, repetitive work and more time for higher-value tasks such as quality control, innovation, and crop care.

© Viemose DGSFloris Berghout

The bigger picture
Automation in horticulture isn't just about economics. Climate change and focus on the environment is driving growers indoors, where water use can be controlled and fertilizers minimized. Consumers demand produce grown with fewer chemicals. At the same time, labor shortages are biting across Europe and beyond.

"All these factors push us in the same direction," Berghout says. "More indoor growing, more efficiency, and smarter use of space. If we grow food more effectively under glass, we leave more land for biodiversity. That's a win for people and for nature."

4XROBOTS share that outlook. "We don't see ourselves just as a tech supplier or robotics manufacturer," says The CCO of 4XROBOTS. "We see ourselves as part of a food system that needs to be safer, more resilient, and more sustainable. Partnering with companies like Viemose helps make that real."