Developing online logistics platform for swine production industry

EveryPig is a leading high-end platform for managing the entire pork life-cycle, starting from production to delivery to sales. Powered by Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning features, EveryPig allows for planning the supply chain, gathering insightful and transparent data and collaborating with your team members as well as other stakeholders all along the road.

Chris Bomgaars currently serves as a Vice President at his family’s agricultural company, RC Family Farms, where he leads strategy, procurement and business development. Nick Bartlett is the co-founder of EveryPig, who is currently working as a designer and a customer service representative.

Driven by their disruptive ideas to revolutionize the pork industry, Chris Bomgaars and Nick Bartlett decided to create the EveryPig software application ─ a first of its kind pig health/welfare platform.

everypig.com

everypig.com

The situation

That said, our client Chris, the founder of EveryPig, had a great passion for innovations, so he was seeking to gain a competitive edge and enrich the user experience by transforming a pork production legacy system that was difficult to scale, maintain and integrate with third-party software.

To enhance the company’s digital presence, Chris decided to reach out to Brocoders to develop a multi-functioning solution that would allow for tracking the overall outcomes, acquiring AI-fueled data and providing remote veterinary services. We split the development process into two phases and successfully built a working product while meeting all the customer’s requirements.

Nevertheless, the project still lacked the opportunity to provide a decent pork production logistics. It’s worth noting that most large-scale producers utilized outdated and ineffective methodologies for tracking pigs during their transportation from farms to other farms, slaughterhouses or sales outlets, to name just a few.

To overcome these issues and connect all stakeholders in one single working chain, Chris ended up with the idea to create a full-cycle logistics platform that can automate all processes and provide a transparent data tracking from a breeding sow to a packaging plant stage.

Our Services

• MVP development
• Product development

Technology

Key challenges

To support the client on his path, we launched the third phase to develop a new platform that would include the old data of the existing system, new innovative features as well as a new logistics core.

To enable a smooth and streamlined development process, as well as reduce the development time, we assigned the team of our in-house seasoned experts that had worked on previous EveryPig app versions:

Our primary goal was to create an all-in-one logistics solution that combines both the logistics and the service (production) teams so that all interested parties can collaborate on the single industry platform. Besides, we wanted to make the entire process fully transparent to receive real-time feedback from active users.

The biggest challenge for us was to implement a new logistics part while ensuring the environment of the existing working system remains stable and functioning. Thanks to our deep understanding of the project, we managed to avoid most of the pitfalls, yet there were some issues we had to face anyway:

• To implement a logistics module, we had to entirely redesign the project and readjust the working solution.
• That said, there was a risk of damaging the existing structure while integrating new features, so it was vital to ensure every step was done correctly. The EveryPig core platform had active and sensitive users ― caregivers, so we had to work in a hassle-free mode to avoid critical changes in some of the vital functionalities, such as daily checkups, offline mode, AI-related sections, etc.

To maximize the final product’s KPI and make the working process for end-users as smooth and comfy as possible, we also empowered a new logistics platform with additional features:

• Online GPS-enabled maps and routes
• Web sockets
• Push up notifications
• Personal admin settings panels for trucking admins (shipping companies owners)

Delivered solution

In light of a wide range of tasks before us, we’ve managed to build a fully-functioning MVP-based logistics platform, based on a large set of new functionalities and connections that provide full compliance with the active project and allow for a smooth app running.

We transformed a telemedicine solution into a full-cycle logistics platform to ensure the company is backed by powerful feature-rich technology. We also introduced three new user types to cover the entire supply chain. So there are five key end-users at the moment:

The logistics teams can now process and analyze in-depth info on pigs and farms throughout the entire supply chain, hence significantly boosting the overall workflow and maximizing their transportation planning efficiency. There are three major transportation types designed for various delivery scenarios:

Split into a few sectores, such an approach allows for better data mapping and analyzing, while augmenting the security algorithms.

Thanks to in-built online contracts, every stakeholder can now easily trace the pigs’ movements all the way from farms to nurseries, slaughterhouses or packaging plants as well.

The online contract is a document that is prepared and created by the EveryPig’s logistics teams. To ensure exhaustive and transparent info is delivered to every interested party, the logistics teams fill in the most crucial data each time the transportation is scheduled:

• Contract owner/creator, number and date
• Destination point
• The number of heads
• Pigs weight range
• Delivery frequency, status and date
• Specialty contract requirements (i.e. specific customers’ requests)

The logistics teams assign particular contracts to particular stakeholders, so they can access the attached online document whenever and wherever they are and come up with highly accurate data. Such a digital-driven approach helps the Agritech sector to minimize inefficient and time-wasting paperwork.

Besides, we meticulously reinvented the project’s design using the latest technologies, thus enabling fascinating usability and enhanced user experience. EveryPig Logistics is basically a completely new solution, empowered with the following remarkable features:

• An all-in-one platform that combines both production and logistics to drastically streamline and automate all processes, thus solving the industry’s crucial pain points. EveryPig Logistics ensures outstanding traceability throughout the entire supply chain and provides all parties with transparent real-time data.
• Trucking admins and truckers can easily monitor invaluable info and effectively manage their workflow right from a smartphone, a tablet or a computer. It works for other stakeholders the same way, of course.
• A highly competitive product with an entirely covered ecosystem that provides means to go head to head with other existing logistics solutions that manufacturers and packaging plants tend to use over the last years. In fact, it’s a top rival ready to replace those legacy systems.