Oscar: The first device for managing a warehouse of articles able to visually recognise any label without the need of a barcode.

Project Information

Oscar

Grant agreement ID: 835593

DOI

10.3030/835593

Project closed

EC signature date 26 November 2018

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 31 May 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

VH TECHNOLOGY SRL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Oscar (Oscar: The first device for managing a warehouse of articles able to visually recognise any label without the need of a barcode.)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2019-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

VH Technology designed and developed an innovative device (Oscar) able to automatically manage warehouses by recognising any product label which is placed in front of the device camera, without the need of barcode, QR code, RFID. The first product that we want to bring to the market, is a device tailored to manage wine cellars, able to solve today’s cellar management inefficiencies.

Objectives of the project:
Perform a detailed analysis of the wine cellar management market and customers survey.
Validate the concept by testing Oscar prototype in a real working environment.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We performed a 6 months feasibility study that focused on the following activities:

Market Analysis: We made a study of the wine cellar management market and related potential business opportunities. We defined main target segments, we quantified their market size and identified the main customer profiles.

Customer Survey: We submitted a questionnaire to a selected group of customers representative of different business profiles. The survey addressed customer needs and practices, cellar statistics and turnover. Our ambition was to know how Oscar can solve cellar management issues in a more efficient way and to assess what is the added value perceived by our target customers.

Prototype Final Validation: We tested our Oscar prototype in a real working environment. The test was performed in one of the most important Italian Michelin star restaurant. Oscar was very appreciated by the user. It was confirmed that our product allows significant time saving in cellar management and improves its efficiency. We also received useful feedback for product improvement.

Identification of Expansion Sector: We explored the opportunity to extend our innovative product to warehouse management applications other than wine management.

Business Plan Update: Outcome from market analysis, customers survey, and validation test was taken into account for updating our market strategy and the Business Plan. In particular the work done was very useful to definite how to improve the Oscar software and hardware to make it ready to go to the market. On this base we defined the SWOT Analysis, Strategic Plan and the Marketing Mix.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The outcome of phase 1 shows a potential for Oscar concept, therefore the project is confirmed and VH Technology will continue to develop this business project.

Oscar HW architecture and SW features have been refined and improved taking into account results from customer survey and prototype test.