When widespread pandemics, like the recent Covid-19 strike, the first thing that comes in mind of people is chaos. In order to survive a plague, quarantine proved to be one of the most efficient ways to stop the spreading and contamination of the virus. To sustain human life, certain physiological needs are essential such as water, shelter, sanitation and food. Due to their recurring nature and other issues resulting from quarantine such as hoarding and delaying or totally dismissing delivery and shipping services, it can get difficult and quite dangerous for people to provide for themselves and address their most basic needs. Feeling concerned about the safety and survival of people all around the world, our team was up for the challenge. As the English/Scottish proverb says: “A chain is as strong as its weakest link!”, wanting our supply chain to be foolproof and sustainable, we identified its weakest point -which is the most vulnerable to pandemics- and that goes without saying, that the weakest joint is the human workforce. You can first of all check our website: https://food-unit.co/
Labour in the food supply chain is divided among:
-Those who gather and grow resources such as farmers and fishermen
-Those who work in manufacturing and processing
-Those who transport goods and ensure shipping
-Those who place them at the disposal of consumers such as retailers or vendors
In order to address the issue of pandemics, the chore idea of our proposed solution is to reduce the number of workers in the supply chain and to minimize human intervention-such as brokers who arrange transactions.
At first glance, drones seemed like the most efficient tool due to its multipurpose use, not only can it help with the production of raw goods by watering and keeping track of soil moisture,crops and livestock for farms. Which led us to think about enhancing the performance of autonomous trucks by including a pathfinder algorithm to ensure the high-quality transportation of these goods, directly from its producers to manufacturing sites.
Production lines are also automated, so no human intervention is needed. The end products are then transported with the same autonomous trucks mentioned above, either to warehouses to be stored, or to big-box stores to be sold.
With that settled, we can now focus on our main concern: shipping the products from these stores to their end destination, smaller autonomous trucks should be used for brokerage services, and delivery drones for end consumers.
Weather forecasting data can be used alongside earth data and food demand data to give the producers the best state of affairs when it comes to production .
Data related to moisture and soil quality etc. is used in the A.I models (classification) for drones assigned for irrigation and pesticides.
Data related to terrain topology, grains, mapping etc. is used in the A.I models of cultivation and gathering engines.
We also got our inspiration from the energy industry where smart-grid technology can be used in order to sustain energy production, by selling the excess that can not be used, and buying energy when needed. The same idea is applied here. We like to think of it as a network of stores, which are located according to production regions. With the help of A.I algorithms, stock level and their state can be communicated and shared.
To transport goods, we propose two ways depending on the weight of the packages. For heavy packages exceeding 50 kg, autonomous trucks are going to be used, and for lighter packages starting under 50 kgs, delivery drones will be in charge of the shipping.
Customers can use a platform to select the items they need. After the payment transaction, an autonomous drone will carry and deliver the package from one point to another, 100% autonomously.
The same platform can be used to register one’s own drone either to use it or to rent it to the delivery service, in return, the customer can get some form of discount or loyalty reward.
The proposed plan is a solution to hoarding goods, to workers getting sick and to changes in crop and commodity prices. Warehouses and big-box stores either can be owned by the state (which will directly buy products from farmers and transport them) or private companies (in this case transporting companies are needed), in addition to the fact that drones have limited delivery capacity (around 50 kg ) it is highly unlikely for anyone to hoard goods. There is no risk for workers to get sick as the supply chain is fully automated. Products and goods prices will still be affordable as the number of brokers is reduced.
Website: https://food-unit.co/
Presentation: https://prezi.com/view/w93NetyJaJYV0smt7BX1/
Case of study: https://food-unit.co/services.html
- U.S. Geological Survey, NASA Earth Data Ressource
- Spatial Data, Solid Earth Centre
- RGPH 2004, Haut-Commissariat au Plan
- Poverty, vulnerability and inequality indices by region 2001-2014, HCP
- ECONOMIC CENSUS, HCP