wiki

Portugal 2020

Bloq.it OS - Tech Overview (technical)


  • It all started when the emergent company tried to put smart lockers on Portuguese beaches. With a vision of the need and the business, they thought of creating their own system and the ideia became viable and the company grew. Currently, the proposal is to give opportunity to others, taking smart locker software into the 21st century


  • The solution of this project is easy to integrate with existing lockers, offers a wide range of fully developed aspects, it is compatible with most lockers on the market and has a complete suite of products and interfaces developed by the company itself.
  • In this context, suppliers produce electronic lockers, Bloq.it provides the softwareand the companies of end lockers users can use, for example, DHL, Amazon, Correios, etc) .
  • Why this solution is shocking. Simple, it reduces software development costs, is plug & play, fully ready-to-use, easy to integrate with all current smart lockers and can be a standard solution for third-party implementations


  • Use-Cases:
    • Store & Charge
      • Smart item storage
      • Electronic device charging
      • Paid, free or whitelisted
      • Subscription systems
      • Remote opening
    • Exchange items:
      • Contactless item exchange
      • Ready for BOPIS system
      • Paid, free or whitelisted
      • Advanced notification system => ??
      • Autonomous process
    • Parcel & Pick-up
      • Parcel delivery system
      • Carrier agnostic
      • Notification & tracking system
      • Ready to be integrated with 3rd party systems


  • Key Differentiators:
    • Adaptability – We believe software shouldn't be made having only one focus in mind, the world is ever-changing. So we made our software as adaptable and as flexible as possible.
    • Standard – No point in keeping reinventing the wheel - to simplify integrations, we use what’s already proven and the most standard processes.
    • User centered – User is king. We live by the motto, all of our interfaces have been created with that in mind. We invested a lot of time and resources in UX and UI to make sure our technology is simple and fun to operate.
    • Scalable – Our goal is to be the standard smart locker technology solution - therefore all our services must be capable of scaling well and internationally.
    • KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid. Following our lean development approach, we always try to make things as simple as possible. This helps in doing better and faster development of our products.


  • Adaptability:
    • Bloq.it OS is a plug-and-play solution. Adaptability is one of our core features. Our main locker interface is a WebApp, therefore, it can be used on most smart locker computers. The interface was designed to resize and work with any screen size.
    • The requirements to run Bloq.it OS are based on the features present on the standard smart lockers. They need to have:
      • CPU with any Operative System (Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android…)
      • Electric opening doors with Smart sensors
      • Secure Internet connection capabilities
      • Screen & Keypad or Touchscreen
    • The service is complemented and better provided if the lockers have the following:
      • Front-view Camera & Cameras for Video Surveillance
      • Sound column speakers & Siren for alarm
      • Anti-vandalism Touch Screen & Keypad
      • Infrared sensors for object detection
      • NFC / QR code reader
      • Card Payment Terminal


  • Structure:
    • Back-end Software: Bloq.it OS
    • Interfaces:
    • Bloq.it Back office
    • Bloq.it app
    • Public API


  • Components:
    • Bloq.it <=> Bloq and Lockers IoT [Secure connection]
    • Bloq.it <=> Bloq.it & Back office and Bloq.it app [https]
    • Bloq.it <=> Custom ERP system from client and Clients app [Public Rest API]
    • Bloq.it <=> External Service email and External Service Invoices


  • Cloud Proprietary Back-end
    • The back-end is truly the brain behind Bloq.it OS. All the interfaces communicate and get commands from there. Our proprietary algorithms and centralized architecture make sure all the Lockers are connected to our back-end at all times.
    • This makes it easier to push software and firmware updates. It also allows to control lockers completely remotely. And it makes sure that lockers are secure - since all the decisions are made by the algorithms in the back-end.
    • This creates a network effect, where all lockers communicate with the same central structure. All of this allows for improved development, big data collection, and neural nets and AI software development in the future.
  • Back-Office Webapp
    • Our web-based Back-office allows you to manage all the locker and service settings, it can be accessed by any device with a browser. Manage and control your lockers in real-time, anywhere. Get instant locker notifications such has new usages, issues, warnings and more.
    • Change locker settings such as price, name, geo-location, door availability, campaigns, promo codes among others. Detailed data such as user interactions, KPIs, usage analytics, logs, transactions, revenue and a lot more. It has a role-based security policy implemented - differentiated access rights to partitions, including individual rights to critical system functionality. =>>>>>>>>>>>
  • API
    • The Bloq.it API is a REST API, which has the implementation of all needed features to support any interface to utilise Bloq.it OS. It allows to:
      • Integrate with existing 3rd party applications
      • Use your own website or platform as the main user interface
      • Integrate Bloq.it OS with your pre-existing platforms or ERP
      • Developed with a state of the art API framework for scalability, fully documented with postman for ease of development.
  • External Services


  • Locker Screen Interface
    • Bloq.it OS uses its own locker screen interface. This screen interface changes depending on the options available on the locker and the way it is set-up to work. Eg. An office, storage only Locker that is opened/closed by RFID employee cards will have a completely different User Interface than a Locker that is placed outdoors to be used as storage, parcel & exchange.
    • The Locker Screen Interface will automatically adjust to the settings defined by the Locker Administrator on the back-office. The interface is adjustable to any type of screen size or ratio, and it’s meant to be used as a touch-screen, but it can also use a keypad. We focused on developing a simple and intuitive UI.
  • Mobile App
    • The Bloq.it App is the leading app to control smart lockers. It was built following the current UX & UI trends of similar sharing economy services (eg. Lime, Bird, Uber, …).

This makes it easy for new users to know how to operate, since they’re already accustomed with apps that follow similar UI’s and flows.

    • Our app was also the first to control smart lockers through an centralized cloud solution, first one to have a billing & payment integration and also the first one with integrated customer support. This has set the framework for similar competitors.
    • Key features:
      • Mobile payment: Pay cashlessly from your credit card
      • Find closest locker: Use the map to find and get directions to available lockers.
      • Data collection: Harvest valuable user data from the usage on the app.
      • Open your door: Tap to open immediately. No need for proximity.
      • Set your authentication: Pick your own authentication, set-up your own PIN Code.
      • Share ownership: Send items to others, or just let them pick your things.


  • IoT Hardware
    • Smart Locks
    • Computer
    • Screen & Key pad
    • Video survellance
    • Power & Supply battery
    • QR/NFC reader
    • Alarm switches
    • Soudn system
    • Key features:
      • Availability – Although our locker needs power and internet connection, our IoT and firmware are fully ready to operate even if these elements fail. Our locker has a back-up power supply that will allow it to function for more than 24 hours after power is out, and if internet connection fails, it will be able to do most operations based on the local memory. =>>>>>>
      • Durability – Tested in the most extreme conditions and outdoors, our industrial IoT can survive all environments from very humid to extremely dry. It can take temperatures from -20ºC to +70ºC.
      • Connection – No need for LAN connections. Our IoT operates fully with GSM connection protocol. Providing the highest grade of security and up-time. It can also use ethernet or WiFi connection.
      • Modular – Our main board is extremely adaptable to add-ons, most devices would only need to be plugged in and configured on our back-office. Makes it easy to add new components or remove unnecessary ones.
      • Low maintenance – Extremely low maintenance, out IoT can be remotely checked and supervised. In-case there’s an issue, detailed logs will be automatically generated, which will allow to quickly understand the issue.


  • Security
    • Secure communications: Secure TLS communication protocol makes it impossible to intercept locker I/O communications
    • End-to-end encryption: Communications are encrypted following the SHA-256 standard
    • Logs collection: Log all interactions, including both user generated, admin and locker itself
    • Multiple step communication: Using a multiple step approach to communication protocol, it’s impossible to do man in the middle attacks using the mobile app, API or back-office
    • GDPR Compliant: Our database structure and operations are fully compliant with EU GDPR framework
    • Role-based architecture: Permission based roles for different users and controllers


  • Customer focused solution
    • Our solutions are always built having the final customer in-mind. This is exemplified by the multiple user interfaces, allowing users to interact with the lockers either with our mobile app or with the locker screen.
    • Our notification system allows users to be updated on every step of the process, either they’re using our system to store items, send items or receive items.
    • Our payment & billing options allow users to perform cashless transactions, creating an extra level of convenience and freedom.
    • With the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have adopted different lockdown and prevention measures. Our system allows users to trade items contactlessly, also creating a secure environment for commerce.
    • Features:
      • User Experience – Award-winning user-centered UX & UI design studio.
      • Customer Support – State-of-the-art customer support infrastructural tools.
      • Notifications – Email, SMS and push notifications systems with flexible configuration.
      • Loyalty – Campaigns, promo-codes and user specific personalization of communication creates high system loyalty.


Bloq.it (Business Case)


  • Proposta de esturtura
    • 1. Panorama mercado? Qual oportunidade existe no mercado? Motivo de fazer?
    • 2. Público-alvo (clusters, personas, dores)
    • 3. Propósito (direito de vender)
    • 4. Solução proposta
    • 5. Modelo de Negócios
    • 6. Hipóteses a serem validadas (negócio, técnica, experiência cliente)
    • 7. Concorrentes
    • 8. Diferenciais
    • 9. Mercado Potencial (TAM, SAM, SOM)
    • 10. Racional do BC
    • 11. Tração de Receita (Receita Bruta Acumulado em 5 anos)
    • 12. Investimento, se necessário para desenvolvimento.


Bloq.it (Business Case) com Vídeo


  • Crescimento: 2.100%
    • Em plena pandemia, conseguimos adaptar e inovar, o resultado: um hiper-crescimento em receita.
  • Lockers ativos:
    • Criando uma solução diferenciadora, conseguimos trabalhar empresas para expandir a nossa rede de cacifos.
  • 15 países:
    • em 3 continentes. Estabelecendo parcerias chaves com diferentes empresas, conseguimos criar rapidamente uma presença global, em diferentes países.
  • Trused by:
    • Galp Glintt, TireDisconters, El Corte Ingles
  • Honors and Awards:
    • Web Summit e EU-Startups


  • Problems:
    • People not participant. Most part of population work in outside activities, that not belong to e-commerce
  • Costs of e-commerce
    • 90% of costs from e-commerce caused by last-mile.
  • Dense urban population
    • Several metropolitans zones with big populational density hamper the logistic organization


  • Benefits:
    • More eficiency avoiding risks of absence of port-to-port attempt
    • Disponibilidade em áreas de risco: onde os meios atuais não chegam. (Até 47%)
    • Entregas até 10 vezes mais rápidas.
    • “Same-day delivery” e outras opções semelhantes.
    • Redução de custos de fretes.
    • Aumento do raio de entrega.


  • Timing perfeito
    • Grande parte das empresas de entregas estão à procura de soluções com Smart Lockers para reduzir o custo do last-mile. Nunca houve tanto capital investido nesta indústria. Primeiro a expandir no mercado vai ter uma vantagem e capitalizar a sua network. Timing é CRUCIAL, a nossa solução permite organizações criar redes de smart lockers de forma simples e efetiva.


  • Desafios
    • Viabilidade e extensão do processo de produção local da tecnologia
    • Interesse dos diferentes players na participação neste negócio
    • Modelo de negócio exato entre os diferentes intervenientes
    • Burocracia local





BP

  • Estudo:
    • Plataforma Bloq.it: R$ 750,00/mês x 12 meses x 10 armários =>
    • Componente eletrônico + 67,5% de imposto: R$ 13.000,00 x 10 armários (incluindo impostos)a
    • Hardware Laurenti: R$ 40.000,00 x 10 (Armário com fechadura)
    • Custo por porta: ??


  • Marketing:
    • Pesquisa de mercado: R$ 25.000,00
    • Developer TI: R$ 6.000,00/mês + x 12 meses - Suporte TI
    • Custo Squad: 1 milhão e 200
    • Dev e Eng Bloq.it = Salário 3 mil euros (com impostos) cada


  • Cálculo Marco: R$ 2 milhões e 500 mil / 6.4 = 370 mil euros
  • Pedido: 2 anos
  • Pedir 450 mil euros

Links








Escrita

The booming of e-commerce has led to a significant increase in freight traffic levels, especially in urban areas. As a result, managers in the e-commerce and parcel logistics fields have to face a lot of challenges in the last-mile delivery system, such as the pressure on delivery time, the service-level expectation of customers, transportation cost, and environmental impact. Smart locker (or automated reception box, parcel locker) is a sustainable alternative solution for home delivery in the last-mile delivery system.

Low-contact logistics was a timid trend before the Covid-19 pandemic. Its use has increased considerably during periods of isolation, due to the danger of transmitting the virus through physical contact between people. During the isolation period, practices such as delivery , drive through and vending machine became more requested and had a significant increase, as well as the e-commerces, marketplaces and contact malls which were already well consolidated.

Why are smart lockers here to stay? They are found in shopping malls, subway stations, residential condominiums, gas stations, hypermarkets and many other, most diverse locations. Smart lockers or e-Boxes have definitely caught on with retailers, industries and consumers around the world. And there are many reasons for this.

Following the expansion of the internet, e-commerce has been growing, since the end of the 1990s, at a very fast pace. And with growth come challenges. In the case of e-commerce, delivery has become a bottleneck, the biggest “growing pain”. The delivery experience strongly influences the final consumer's perception of the online retailer's purchase and quality. This consumer can be both in a distant rural area, where the internet has arrived even before the asphalt, as in an urban area with high density and major mobility problems. It doesn't matter, he wants to receive your order on short notice, without paying too much for it and without any kind of worry. Self-service through e-Boxes helped in the challenge, complementing other logistical modes.

The first smart lockers appeared in Europe, in 2002, and in the United States, in 2011. In Europe, the pioneer service was that of the German giant DHL, with its Packstations, which now number more than 7,000 throughout Germany. In the United States, Amazon inaugurated the concept, installing the cabinets in the 7-eleven convenience franchising. Today, Amazon has more than 2,000 lockers spread across the US.

In Brazil, smart lockers started to appear in 2012, but it was only in 2019, with the arrival of new business and service models, which gained scale to the point of supporting electronic commerce, which was highly pressured by the new demands in the pandemic. The country has its peculiarities and e-Boxes manage to solve the most varied obstacles in delivery. One example is areas at risk of violence or theft: a survey by Insper shows that 22% of the population of large cities live in communities considered to be at risk areas, representing 13 million people who consume R$23 billion a year. With the difficulties faced in home delivery in these locations, the company that installs the lockers in public places guarantees the service to all this significant contingent. And what exactly is the smart locker service like?

As the name implies, smart lockers have technology: basically a digital system that allows automatic opening of compartments using a password or QR Code. Security is one of the advantages for those delivering and receiving. The operation does not involve third parties and the lockers have surveillance and monitoring cameras.

Comfort, practicality, convenience are other advantages for consumers. When making an online purchase and choosing to receive it in a smart locker, it is possible to choose the best point to pick up the order without time restrictions. According to ABComm (Brazilian Association of Electronic Commerce), more than 35% of consumers in Brazil complain about receiving orders. Of these, 75% even point to the limited hours of service as their main problem. The convenience is also evident when there is a need for exchange or return.

For companies, smart lockers facilitate delivery logistics and bring a significant reduction in freight expenses. That's because the so-called “last mile” — delivery to the final consumer — accounts for 55% of the cost of the entire delivery. And the cost is repeated in "reverse logistics", when the product is returned. Companies are also able to reduce deadlines, as they reduce the setbacks in the final stretch of delivery and optimize their routes.

Finally, the environment is also grateful: consolidating packages on delivery reduces the mileage driven by delivery vehicles while increasing their efficiency. The result is 95% reductions in CO2 emissions per delivery.

  • Home delivery and smart locker

Home delivery or attended home delivery is the most usual last-mile delivery method. However, practitioners and researchers have criticized home delivery as an inefficient and inflexible method due to the following reasons. Firstly, the lack of flexibility, customers have to be at home/ prearranged place during a prearranged period. Secondly, delivery failure rate, there is a risk that the receiver is not home, making it necessary to perform a second or even third delivery trial. That not only leads to late delivery, unsatisfactory of e-commerce sellers, consumers, and logistics operators but also exacerbates air/noise emission and traffic congestion in cities. Thirdly, high shipping cost, according to Statista (2020), in 2018, the average cost consumers are willing to pay is only 1.4 US dollars; however, they have to pay 8.08 US dollars and the average cost incurred to organizations is 10.1 US dollars (Statista, 2020b). There is another choice to change the receiving place from home to the workplace in order to decrease delivery failure rates. However, the deliveries to the workplace cause traffic problems in office buildings, especially on special days such as Christmas, and have a negative impact on the productivity of employees. As a result, more and more companies are now banning their employees from receiving personal deliveries at the workplace.

  • Smart locker, which is also named as automated locker, parcel locker, smart/intelligent box, delivery box, and (shared) reception box, has been argued as a sustainable

alternative solution for home delivery to deal with the above challenges. Smart locker can be defined as an unstaffed, automated box, which is fixed to a wall outside the customer’s home in a secure place (for example ground floor of buildings, apartment blocks, workplaces, car parks, railway stations), can be accessed by a key or an electronic code; the final consumer can be notified of the delivery via mobile phone or email. The smart locker is used mostly for parcels, but it can contain food with temperature control equipment. The solution “parcel locker” can provides better vehicle routing, decreases the delivery cost for logistics operators, and reduce drivers’ pressure of wrong addresses and missed delivery. In addition, from the customer perspective, studies in Poland, Amsterdam, and other cities proved that customer appreciate smart locker and satisfied with the service because of its benefits such as the ability to reducing shipping cost for consumers, the convenience and proactiveness in delivery and return services. Regarding the environmental impact, the use of smart lockers in relation to (attended) home delivery can save up to two-thirds of the emissions.

  • Using the examples in other countries, there are some questions: i) How has the solution “smart locker” been implemented in cities around the world and (ii) What

is the potential (opportunities and challenges) to apply this sustainable solution in urban areas.

    • Parcel lockers can be gradually implemented in big cities. To help buyers at their e-commerce site be more convenient and proactive in the process of receiving goods and saving the cost of carrying goods to customers, with an alternative solutions for home delivery such as "Collection point”.
  • Strengths/ Benefits: Automated and Availability 24/7, increasing convenience and flexibility for customers, reducing pressures on logistics operators about the distance of the transportation process, failed delivery times, and peak season. Decrease cost and enhance competitive advantages, improving the performance of logistics companies. Enabling sustainable development by reducing air pollution, noise pollution, traffic congestion, and saving energy
  • Challenges/ Threats: Preferences of customers, require unattended payment, installation and operation cost (low-labor cost markets), security issues, large-size parcels, worries about prohibited goods transportation.
  • Conclusion: The boom of e-commerce and the growth of urbanization have made the demand for logistics activities, particularly delivery activities in urban areas, increase dramatically with the vast amount of goods that need to be delivered to the final consumers at the fastest speed. According to World Economic Forum (2020), demand for last-mile delivery in urban areas is forecasted to increase by 78% by 2030, resulting in 36% more delivery vehicles in about 100 cities around the world. Smart locker is proved to be a sustainable and cost-efficient solution for the last-mile delivery system. The opportunities and benefits of the smart locker from the perspectives of consumers, operators, and communities are clear. We can analyze the primary challenges (such as consumer preferences, payment methods, installing fee, law, size of parcel, and prohibited goods). We can think in research to investigate (i) methods and/or model to choose the optimal quantity, locations, and sizes of parcel lockers facilities (ii) impact and intention of using smart lockers in Vietnamese e-commerce stakeholders, and (iii) countermeasures to deal with challenges arising when implementing this green solution.
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