Find out how businesses have benefited from working with us.
Agronomy Research – Mobile app developed to analyse the distribution of grass species
The SME’s existing service was in person where the owner would attend golf courses by request to inspect and evaluate greens. Following this inspection, they would potentially take samples to be analysed off site and then generate a report. To streamline this process the SME was interested in developing a mobile application that fed images into corresponding Matlab application to analyse the distribution of grass species, effectively a remote although somewhat less exact version of the in-person service which could act as a triage. This offered the SME the ability to expand the service to include online assistance, thus expanding the revenue opportunity and customer base/reach. This digital remote version of the service also offered the SME a unique service selling point.
“The programme was ideal for us as it enabled a product concept to be turned into reality. Without this support our company had the concept but not the expertise to develop the idea into a usable system to facilitate the growth and expansion of our business.
I cannot speak highly enough about the enthusiasm and technical know-how Lancaster University provided and would thoroughly recommend them to any local SME’s looking to expand their business through innovative product development.”
Neil Baldwin, Director, Agronomy Research
IOT sensors and a mobile application developed to demonstrate the coverage of a cleaning team within a building
The SME is a cleaning service that had experienced difficulty in gathering payment in situations where service coverage had been disputed. The initial scope of the project was to enable them to prove that certain areas of the building had been entered by the team on site with a further aspiration of investigating movement pattern trends. The project used IOT sensors and a mobile application to demonstrate the coverage of a cleaning team within a building. This resulted in preventing further lost revenue for the company as well as offering a unique service selling point.
The company had been offered a contract to provide multimedia content for a provider of clinical trials. The content was intended to give a patient the required information in order for them to give their consent to be part of the trial. One of the main issues in this was the lack of stable Wi-Fi within each site so the application was required to be able to work offline. The project developed a mobile application that was precached content and was thus enabled to work offline to allow trial participants to give consent (or not) regardless internet connection/reliability.
Agnes Control
The SME had identified an opportunity around the access and security of properties such as holiday cottages, residential lettings as well as a range of other properties, in situations where guests and engineers etc may need ad hoc access to properties. The existing method of arranging for key based access had large time and logistics overhead and to address this, Agnes Control were interested in building a prototype system that would allow them to provide this remotely.
The company identified two disparate pieces of technology in the physical locks and a data management system. The digital project team build an API to facilitate data transfer and the commands for locking and unlocking properties and a mobile application available to users on site. This allowed Agnes Control to build an entirely new product, ready for further development to bring it to market.
If you have any question or want to speak to one of our team, please email cuspenquiries@lancaster.ac.uk or call:
James Livsey+44 (0)1524 510332 to find out more about digital product design
Jane Hunter +44 (0)1524 593 632 to find out more about the Innovation Catalyst
Sarah Allison+44 (0)1228 888 733 or cusp@cumbria.ac.uk to find out more about our Innovation Masterclasses & Events, Innovation Coaching and Student Research Placements
Chris Lambert+44 7814 076610 to find out more about the scientific facilities on offer
We look forward to talking to you.