Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MiMEX (Micro Market Experience)
Période du rapport: 2021-12-01 au 2022-11-30
MIMEX is developing the first financially-viable and complete solution for retailers to deploy cashierless and modular micro-markets that is compatible with COVID-19 personal welfare protocols (i.e. masks, distancing, temperatures, etc.). An integrated network of low-cost sensors (e.g. cameras and weight sensors) integrated into smart shelves and shopping spaces automatically understand which products are being picked up by customers, as well as monitoring their behaviour to see if safety protocols are being adhered to. This will guarantee a safe, efficient and pleasurable shopping experience, whilst offering new opportunities to the retail sector. In particular, MIMEX stores will act as a new type of front-line service for the public in times of travel restrictions or social lockdowns imposed by pandemics. MIMEX will be a solution to society’s evolving needs, by making shoppers feel safer in physical shops, by linking a physical store to online ones and importantly by supporting a work-life balance within organizational contexts. We also aim to create a mobile version of the MIMEX micro-market, that will provide a new form of frontline public service, capable of taking products safely to the people who cannot, or do not, want to go to big, shared supermarkets at times of pandemics. Our modular solution will fit any retailer need and will not require highly qualified personnel for system-maintenance, thus creating a seamless solution. The project created a Testbed in Trento and nr.2 Pilots in Istanbul and Malaga ready to be used by real people.
The activities carried out in the first and second reporting period were focused towards creating nr. three instances of the MIMEX store in the cities of Trento, Istanbul and Malaga. All the work-packages pushed towards this common objective and its related components. In particular, WP2 set the basis for the definition of the functionalities and requirements of the testbed – also to be exploited in the project’s two pilot sites in the second year. In WP2, we conducted three rounds of stakeholder surveys, whose results helped the team to define and tailor various aspects of MIMEX’s solutions to make the products on sale and the services offered more attractive to shoppers, MIMEX solution customers, and also to the potential suppliers of goods and support services. In WP3 and WP4, the consortium focussed on the realization of the software and hardware components. In WP3, we created a server infrastructure to run shop services, spread across cloud servers and physical computing machines. Also, the people tracking system patented by FBK (the “SmarTrack”), was adapted for the dynamics of a micro-market. Various adaptations were introduced to improve the overall responsiveness and precision of the tracking system, ensuring people could be tracked consistently, with a minimal loss of tracking. We also defined an innovative approach to help reduce the effort required to train the system to detect new products added to the shop’s inventory. The idea is to exploit the redundancy of information produced by the weighing scale monitoring system and the vision system (i.e. both identifying objects/products taken from and them released on the shop shelves) to automatically collect and label new images of products in the hands of shopper when a weight-change event is detected. In WP4, a weighing scale prototype was created and patented. It was also installed in an innovative fridge unit which allowed to extend the types of products within the store and being finally part of an industrialized MIMEX version. In WP5, all of the activities related to the physical construction of the Pilots were carried out. We defined the space where to settle them and commissioned companies to build them. Once the physical structure was ready, we mounted the racks, cameras, and all of the necessary equipment. This procedure repeated for the creation of the three instances of the MIMEX store. The testbed is installed within the FBK research centre in Trento and open to their employees, Pilot 1 is open inside a shopping mall in Istanbul, and Pilot 2 is the container version set up in the campus of the University of Malaga. All the demonstrators allow for a complete shopping experience based on people recognition, products detection, and payment. In WP6 the consortium worked on the dissemination and exploitation. The pilots were used to organize demo sessions with users, stakeholders and potential customers. Some of them already showed an interest in investing in the solution and adopting it for their business. These are steps that the consortium outlined in their business and commercialization strategy that will be the driver for the definition of a future business after the end of the project.
MIMEX is an innovative European project that can have a significant impact on the EU retail sector. This is underlined by the fact that few companies are currently operating in this sector, although they have been increasing their efforts on developing smart retail solutions as they see a huge potential market. One of the major goals of MIMEX is to create safe shopping places, this is thus a strong driver for our innovation. In particular, one of the goals of MIMEX to ensure a safe shopping place is still a strong driver for innovation. MIMEX could act as a new type of front-line service for the public in times of travel restrictions or social lockdowns imposed by pandemics. MIMEX can provide a solution to society’s evolving needs, by making shoppers feel safer in physical shops by automatically monitoring safety and social distancing measures, denying access to shoppers that are not wearing masks or gloves, etc. An automatized system as MIMEX can notably support the work of retailers that can manage an entire shop staying at home: retailers can manage restocking but also monitoring heating, lightning, temperature. The needs generated by the pandemic have shown that people rely on e-commerce but at the same time they need physical places for their everyday shopping. MIMEX will work as a physical store, providing a blended customer experience where digital applications relate to the physical world in an actual space for the customer journey. Moreover, the efficiencies gained from the smooth checkout process will offer a new shopping experience which is half-way between physical and digital commerce. Finally, MIMEX, when placed within organizational and vocational contexts, could support employees and citizens’ everyday life being a promoter of work-life balance habits that will facilitate work and private life, not only during social distancing, but also in future times. The definition of the business strategy has in fact showed that there is a high potential for cashierless and ‘grab&go’ stores. They in fact answer to the needs of a specific sample of customers and contexts where a traditional large-scale retail will not gain any advantage. This has been proven also by the high interest that some big large-scale retail in the Italian market have shown for the MIMEX, especially as a solution that will be exploited in small quarters or contexts difficult to manage in a traditional way. And finally, the testbed will open its doors in FBK and will be used as a service for employees, showing that such a service does not have a monetary value only but also a social one supporting a different way of work-life balance.