Sparrows
Sparrows provides live actionable alerts on location and temperature for modern logistic teams through a powerful GPS, a user friendly dashboard and alerts triggered depending on the characteristics of the product being transported.
“Nightrider”
Andrea Watson was one of 12 founders who were selected for BlueChilli Amatil Xcelerate Program. The initial problem she was tackling was the under-utilisation of freight trucks and vans traveling Australia and New Zealand and the possibility to generate more value/revenue by connecting half-empty trucks and vans to products that needed to be delivered.
With BlueChilli’s product team, Andrea ran a research sprint and quickly found out that the idea was not commercially viable as no one actually perceived the under-utilised transport as an issue. Through the research insights another problem was spotted: lack of transparency in the transportation chain. Owners and managers of the products being transported did not receive enough or specific data of the freights location or its condition.
The Pivot
With this new insight, Andrea and the BlueChilli Product Team delved into deeper research and validation of the problem and soon found out it was a common issue across logistic team creating different ripples, especially when it related to high-value and perishable goods:
Premium fruit producers and exporters need to know if the fruits are being transported under the right conditions of temperature, humidity and vibrations and make decisions where to send the fruit depending on the quality of the shipment/fruit;
Forestry managers transporting living trees need them to be delivered within a certain timeframe and have a full team ready to receive them and store under the right conditions: not meeting meeting this can result in loss of cargo and working hours of staff;
Freight and Logistics companies need to provide more reliable and accurate information to their clients;
Big supermarket networks need to control their fleet and delivery across the country.
Enter Sparrows: a GPS designed to transmit live data from the inside of refrigerated trucks – and other vehicles –, tracking not only location but also temperature, humidity and shock. That data is sent live to a user friendly dashboard and, in case of issues with the shipment, the system sends automatic alerts to logistic teams so they can take action and avoid partial or total loss of cargo. Sparrows also provide detailed data of departure and proximity alert so the teams can be ready to receive the cargo.
Lean experiments
The pivot was validated by interviewing fruit owners (specifically cherries), forestry managers, warehouse managers and other stakeholders on the logistic chain but also through a lean experiment using an off-the-shelf GPS. We tracked a few shipments of living trees, each worth 100,000 NZD. During this experiment, one shipment was not delivered on the expected timeframe. Upon calling the freight supplier the owner only got the information that the trees were on their way. When we checked the data they had been stopped halfway for more than 12 hours and there was a great risk for the trees to perish before delivery. All cargo would be lost. The owner of the trees than called the freight manager and explained the situation and urgency of the delivery, that was finally made in a timeframe that avoided the loss of the cargo.
Testing and prototype iterations
Throughout our research phase we inter
