{"id":1363,"date":"2018-02-14T15:08:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T14:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/?p=1363"},"modified":"2024-08-29T11:42:37","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T09:42:37","slug":"agricultural-robot-controller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/portfolio\/agricultural-robot-controller.html","title":{"rendered":"Agricultural robot controller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m interested in technology that is being used in the agricultural domain: especially in livestock. Being married into a farmers family might have something to do with that. So, when I was asked to do a workshop with JOZ, a company that is well known for slurry handling appliances, I didn’t had to think twice. They were working on a robot that cleaned slurry from the barn floor. Having the robot somehow running, an interface for its operation (routing and planning) was needed. After the first talks I had with them, all my notes pointed into product development strategy; they didn’t need an interface most, they needed a plan or a strategy for their line of robotic products. I decided to help them kick-start a discussion and journey on that by creating a product future-outlook for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Based on this discussion in 2018, multiple projects have taken place. It’s nice to see the design philosophy of the outlook still is in tact.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Emphasise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned before, I’m familiar with the dairy farm operations. Literally. That helped me quite much when connecting\/talking to farmers about their desires and considerations of having robots operating in their barns. To be able to understand what such a product requires, you need to understand the context it is being used in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next to the farmers, the products by JOZ have another important user group: technicians or installation engineers that install or service their products. Luckily I was able to observe and talk to an engineer that demonstrated his work at a test site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the management of JOZ I learned their plans and worries for the near and longtime future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All my handwritten notes had a few circled keywords on them: ‘strategy’, ‘alignment’ and ‘enthusiastic’. I noticed that an overall (company wide) product alignment and agreement was missing from my observations and talks. But wow, these people were on a mission. As a consultant I see a lot of enthusiastic and driven minds, but these guys are a one off a kind! Being inspired by them, I started to think of how to help them at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Software as part of the product eco system<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When multiple devices are combined into an operational system, its per device operation and further development becomes more complex and time consuming. Combining the products into a single communication platform helps to simplify the use and its (software)product development. Based on observations at dairy farms and interviews with the R&D staff, a common question surfaced: “How to align (near) future product developments when more products join the eco system?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before alignment is possible, a clear goal or outlook and a strategy or mission is needed to have an anchor point. Therefore I conducted desk research into their products and roadmaps. Based on all the information I could retrieve, I’ve created a moonshot or future-outlook for their robotic product line. Its purpose was to start an internal discussion on the long term product development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My presentation of the future-outlook raised a lot of eyebrows and many questions. I was pleased to see a constructive discussion was formed where new ideas were shared and valued. I got all I was hoping for. From this point it was up to the company to modify their product vision that would give them guidance for future developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n<\/picture>\n
Providing a dashboard style status\/performance overview, users can get a status update by a glance at the screen.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Quick select devices to manage all your robots in one interface.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Creating custom routes by a point-and-click navigation.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As the robots have their specific features, routes can be adjusted to its capabilites.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of a UX-Kickstart I helped JOZ to create a product vision and development strategy for their agricultural robot products. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[144,140,129,133,141,145,143],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-portfolio","tag-concept-development","tag-contextual-research","tag-graphic-design","tag-user-flow","tag-user-research","tag-value-proposition","tag-vision"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1415,"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/1415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/b3rt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}