Sustainable business model and MVP for automated measurements of metalworking fluids

Purpose and goal:

The project´s goals were to develop and test an MVP, verify the performance at a customer´s site, and to develop a business model and IP-strategy for the solution.

We have successfully developed and tested the system together with two industrial partners. In the test, some parts of the technology were verified, while others require more research and development. The learnings from the project, and some events in the market had implications on the business model and IP strategy, so we could not finish that work.

Expected results and effects:

During the project we learned that measurements are part of a bigger problem, which is maintaining the quality of the fluid. The system must therefore not only monitor the quality, but also maintain the quality by topping up with new water and chemicals.

We could not measure all the parameters of interest but had good results on the concentration of oil, which is the most important.

Due to some of our learnings and change of events, we did not manage to define a business model or IP strategy. But we managed to define a customer segment, get two LOI´s, and get a better understanding of the pricing. Approach and implementation:

The first part of the project was focussed on creating a consortium of industrial partners including several layers in the value chain.

Then we built an MVP, which was installed at the customer site. It was in operation for about three months and displayed the measurement results to the machine operator on a monitor.

With the learning from the tests, we have now prepared a concept for our next version and found four users that are interested in a product trial.