An industrial robot (10) adapted for operation in a factory area (100) comprises: sensors (11), actuators (12), a robot controller (13) and a wireless interface (14) configured to establish a sidelink (20) to a further industrial robot (110) or a group of industrial robots after a successful proximity verification. The industrial robot is configured to participate in execution of a utility task, which is carried out in collaboration with the further industrial robot or at least some members of the group of industrial robots, said collaboration including an exchange of operational data over the sidelink. An example utility task is the coordinated transfer of an object by multiple participating industrial robots. Another example is the collecting of map information by multiple participating industrial robots.