Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

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.)

Teaser

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...

Summary

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

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.

Final results

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.

Website & more info

More info: http://vhtechnology.com/oscarwine/.