Our client is the world’s largest maker of frozen foods. Their portfolio includes all kinds of dairy products too. Their products are sold in every one of the world’s supermarkets and people literally line up to get their hands on their favorite desserts.
That was the problem. People literally lined up at the supermarket mostly only to buy desserts and they were lost in queues of other people who had a lot of other supermarket type needs. Their innovation office was chalking up thoughts on how they could alleviate this conundrum for their consumers. They found inspiration in what the world’s largest retailer was up to; a self-checkout system for their products.
But this hadn’t ever been done before. Their supply chain was complex. They did not make the freezers, they were not in the software business, nor did they manage payments directly from consumers.
They needed a company that would not just supply technology but build an integrated system while collaborating with their internal and external service providers and suppliers. They needed an entire business system to be able to sell products to their consumers, allowing them to pick what they want and pay for their choice, without needing to stand in line for being able to do this.
The company reached out to the world’s largest provider of software and cloud services. They referred iBot to this company and while we had the prowess, we would have to go through a global tender to get through to this company. And we did.
iBot designed and developed a system with the M-series processor, a 10-inch touchscreen and a bunch of sensors that would detect/scan what product had been picked. iBot integrated with a payment terminal to ensure that consumers could pay for their choice and within minutes, enjoy the choice they made by having their favorite dessert. Data of their selection is sent to the Amazon cloud and the backend for this business is set up on the Microsoft cloud. The payment itself is processed by a 3rd party processor and this confirmation comes back to the consumer within a few seconds to confirm the purchase.
Our trusted iBot Hive is always there to ensure that iBot’s devices, apps and connectivity is running and manages any hardware and app upgrades ever so smoothly.
The world’s first self-checkout for freezers has been built. Tests are ongoing and consumers will soon be able to enjoy this new found freedom to kill the lines and enjoy their dessert.
