In this team we are interested in the possibilities for selling fish from the boat as it arrives at the quayside. Although fishing in the UK is governed by a complicated system of quotas which mean that there are restrictions on a fishing boat’s economic activities, we suggest that, rather than focus on macro-economic systems, you might consider three aspects of the system:
- the margins associated with fish sales;
- the IT system necessary to link fishers to buyers;
- the investment case for a robot fisher.
The investment case, Item 3, sounds complex but in essence you need to convince yourselves that it would make economic good sense for a fisher to buy your machine and that you can make the machine economically enough. You might assume that you need a 50% margin. Thus if robot fisher sells for £100k, you need to be able to make it, at volume, for £50k. And a fisher is spending £100k how long will they take to pay back that investment?
To make progress on that argument you need answers to Items 1 and 2.
Item 2 might sound daunting but www.abalobi.org already exhibits some of the features that you might find useful. There is also developing technology for blockchain recording of fish (www.chainzy.com). Recall that, in food, traceability and provenance are super important and may offer yet more opportunities for increased margin.
Item 1 is probably the more complex item as margins vary daily, by region and apparently small changes in delivery can change margins quite dramatically – people are prepared to pay more for a cold congealed pizza provided it is delivered to their doorstep by a sweaty cyclist than if they had to pop it in the oven themselves. Or are they? To consider this aspect you might consider the 4 Ps of marketing – each P affects the viability of the business and needs some thinking about in advance.
You will note that the other task teams are focussed on identifying the hurdles in building a proof-of-concept demonstrator. They will be tackling that via a series of small-scale experiments and simulations. You might well decide to go that route, in which case the IT system is clearly an area of focus. Or you might decide that much of the basic technology is already in place (think TRL levels) and your attention should be on the financial viability of the overall proposition. You, of all the teams, have the best chance to consider the overall viability of the system and the way that the components need to fit together so might also decide to consider the systems engineering aspects of your product.