Larissa Zeichhardt employs a robotic dog at her construction company — a four-legged machine equipped with various cameras and sensors to document the daily work done at the Berlin-based business LAT.

LAT specializes in laying high-voltage cables along railway tracks, and Zeichhardt says none of her 130 employees is really keen on getting back to the office to write down what's been done after a full shift on the construction site. But without proper documentation, the next shift wouldn't know exactly where the cables are located, she told DW.

This is where LAT's new robo-dog comes into play, as the high-tech mobile machine starts to roam along the tracks, records locations and transmits the data directly into a virtual 3D model of the structure, allowing human colleagues access to it.

This kind of automated data collection also helps prevent damage to the cables that eventually could lead to power outages and costly repairs if their exact location isn't known.

Zeichhardt and her sister Arabelle Laternser took over the medium-sized family business a decade ago after their father's sudden death. Their enthusiasm for modern technology, made them venture into digitally transforming the old-fashioned construction business.

Zeichhardt said the transformation was also partly born out of sheer necessity.

The electrical engineer by profession was pregnant when their father died, and her sister kept bringing new documents home for her to sign. Eventually, the pair grew tired of lugging around binders and decided to digitize the entire administration so they could work from anywhere.

The employees out in the field also........

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