Company profile: Monumental

公司简介:雄伟之志

Boss Class from The Economist

2025-06-30

33 分钟

第 2 季 第 14 集

PDF

单集简介 ...

The construction industry is plagued by labour shortages and low productivity. A Dutch startup and its team of brick-laying robots is trying to change that. We visit one of the company's building projects. To listen to the full series, subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. https://subscribenow.economist.com/podcasts-plus
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • This episode of Boss Class is supported by IDA Ireland.

  • With the highest share of STEM graduates per capita in the EU,

  • IDA Ireland can help source the skills you need to internationalise and thrive.

  • Visit idaisland.com to learn more.

  • Yeah, you could commute from here to Rotterdam.

  • I think it's like 25 minutes to Rotterdam from here.

  • Salah Alfaji is showing me around a property development in the Netherlands.

  • At first glance, it looks like a typical building site.

  • There are buckets and wheelbarrows, the noise of drills and brick cutting and tinny music.

  • But at a closer look, there's something unusual.

  • Dotted around the site are teams of bricklayers who don't need brakes,

  • banter or a blast of Britney Spears.

  • And our robots are basically a set, like we call them,

  • like a mini team of like three robots working together.

  • Alfaji is the co-founder of a startup called Monumental.

  • If you listen to our episode on innovation,

  • you'll know that Alfaji founded his company to shake up construction,

  • an industry bedeviled by low productivity growth and labor shortages.

  • Monumental solution is AI powered automation or bricklaying robots.

  • The one in the middle is the main one, which is like two tiny tower cranes.