Page 42 - Food & Drink Magazine April 2020

ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION
Bringing AI to brand managers
The data science and AI experts at Quantium are rolling out a new platform that places a range of advanced AI solutions at the fingertips of FMCG companies.
AUSTRALIAN data science and AI business Quantium has worked with FMCG clients
for almost a decade to make sense of their supermarket shopping data.
It places a premium on building practical AI solutions to improve operations and benefit a client’s bottom line.
In late 2019 Quantium launched a world-first AI insights platform.
It automates an extensive range of analytic processes to proactively identify emerging trends in scan data and determines their causation, all of which helps brand owners respond quickly and effectively
to changing consumer needs. Quantium FMCG executive
Karl Miklis says that the new platform replaces many functions, which were previously the domain of bespoke analysis conducted manually from spreadsheet- based data sets.
“The time savings are extraordinary. In moments, the platform can perform a series of work that might previously have taken a skilled analyst days or weeks to complete,” says Miklis.
The platform’s core range of analysis includes functions such as weekly sales performance and category range reviews, with marketing use-cases such
as customer profiling slated for later release and more complex operations such as brand planning or measurement also in development.
It draws upon a data set that encompasses trillions of data points, and will continue to increase its intelligence and
accuracy based on experience and new information.
MOVING AHEAD OF
THE MARKET
Miklis says that the platform showed the potential of advanced technologies such as AI and robotics to enable
“ The functionality and convenience of the platform represents a huge leap forward... for the implementation of AI right across the FMCG sector.”
New harvesting tech gets man-go ahead
A Central Queensland University researcher has received a $180,000 innovation grant for a project with Perfection Fresh Australia to help optimise mango harvesting. Doris Prodanovic reports.
A cloud-based system that plans mango harvesting has seen Central Queensland University’s Dr Zhenglin Wang receive the Queensland Government Industry Research Fellowship funding for $180,000.
Wang’s system is being used to plan the harvest for growers in the Burdekin, Mareeba and Childers regions.
LEFT: Dr Zhenglin Wang has developed a new system to automate mango harvesting.
The system will collect data about fruit maturity and crop load on farm using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), machine vision and time-of- flight cameras to help remove manual counts and introduce automated assessments.
Wang said: “We plan to automate how mango growers estimate the spread of flowering as well as fruit number, weight and maturity.
“Machine vision rigs on farm vehicles will move through the
42 | Food&Drink business | April 2020 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au