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The company known for building a home structure with a robot has today reached a breakthrough agreement with a subsidiary of Brickworks (ASX: BKW), with expectations for a pilot program to kick off in Western Australia.
Within months of its partnership with Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) falling through, Perth-based Fastbrick Robotics (ASX: FBR) has entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Brickworks Building Products to form a joint venture within 45 days.
The two companies have agreed to collaborate on manufacturing and certifying concrete masonry unit blocks that will be suitable for building structural walls and residential buildings in Australia with the help of FBR's Hadrian X robot.
If both parties end up agreeing to the joint venture, it will supply FBR's 'Wall as a Service' to the country's building and construction market using the robot.
The proposed JV would be 50-50 for a period of three years under a shareholder agreement still to be negotiated, with Brickworks granted the exclusive right to supply blocks to Fastbrick's Australian operations.
"Partnering with a company of the scale and reputation of Brickworks is a significant step forward for FBR in the commercialisation of the Hadrian X and provides an excellent opportunity to introduce the Wall as a Service business model to the construction industry," says FBR CEO Mike Pivac (pictured left, with Brickworks managing director Lindsay Partridge).
"Our relationship with Brickworks will significantly accelerate the global commercialisation of our technology through the support they can provide as Australia's leading incumbent in the construction materials space, and the industry knowledge they have accumulated over 110 years," he says.
Brickworks managing director Lindsay Partridge says his company is excited to work with FBR towards creating the joint venture initiative.
"We are pleased to be able to leverage our experience and capabilities to manufacture customised blocks for use by FBR's Hadrian X robots and have the opportunity to secure exclusive block supply rights for these robots in the Australian market," he says.
At the time of publication FBR shares were up 17.39 per cent at $0.14 and the BKW share price had risen 1.96 per cent to $16.66.
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