Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SIWI (Automatic Hitching for total Safety of Farmers when Coupling machinery)
Berichtszeitraum: 2018-05-01 bis 2018-08-31
We validated the technical, commercial and financial feasibility of our business innovation project and established the plan for commercialising our breakthrough technology around the globe. We carefully analysed our target market and identified key market drivers that will fuel the market adoption of our products. To speed-up post-project sales, we fine-tuned our commercialisation strategy and contacted several distributors in our target markets.
Technically, we refined our plan to improve the hydraulics system of our products and on fine-tuning the design of our new system that will be mounted on tractor’s transport block. Our market research focussed on analysing the global agricultural machinery industry, the needs of our target customers and elaborated on the value-added by our technology. We analysed key barriers and risks and established their mitigation actions. We studied our competition landscape in the hitch segment and our freedom to operate analysis validated that our technology does not infringe any patent. Also, we carefully refined our commercialisation strategy and projected sales revenues for 2021-2025.
Our technology completely removes the need of farmers to use an additional tractor and driver in the field enabling cost savings of €33,800/year for farmers. This reduces soil compaction as farmers will perform their operations with one tractor instead of 4, which is the current way of working. This translates into substantial reduction of CO2 emissions, ca. 643 million kg CO2 per year. Our product will enhance farmers’ productivity allowing them to save 2.4hrs per day, by fully automating the change of implements. Hence, the EU economy will save ca. €3.5 million per year, currently wasted on non-value-added activities. Also, the fully automated operation of our system drastically reduces fatal accidents in farms; it was calculated that 6 fatal accidents will be avoided in the EU, enabling savings of ca. 10 million per year for EU society.