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Early disease detection in pig farms through sound data and AI

Healthcare

Product innovation

Sensors

Cloud

SaaS

IoT

Amazon Web Services

SoundTalks is a spin-off from KU Leuven built on years of research in sound analysis and precision livestock farming. They created a hardware device to capture sensor data in pig farms and an algorithm to detect disease patterns. We assisted them in setting up a scalable cloud architecture and core product development.

Challenge

The SoundTalks hardware devices capture massive amounts of data in an environment where stable internet is not guaranteed. We were tasked with bringing that data to their cloud infrastructure in a reliable way and building a software platform and user experience to bring insights and notifications to operators in the field.

Solution

We defined and built an end-to-end product experience for all people involved in the process: giving real-time insights on the pig population’s health to farmers and veterinarians. By reducing the time to the concrete detection of disease patterns, farmers will save tremendous costs when something goes sideways.

Appproach

We started off with a product definition trajectory mapping out the user journeys for all personas involved, accompanied by a cloud architecture that would be ready to handle the expected data volumes. Once this was completed, we set up a blended product team with key people from SoundTalks and Panenco combined.

Defining the functional and architectural specifications

We set out on a mission to formalise the functional and architectural dimensions of the product. Bringing actionable health insights into the hands of farmers, veterinarians and operators in the field.

Design track:

We designed clickable prototypes for all desired functionalities, ranging from the floor plan configuration for the hardware devices to health insights and alerts for farmers and veterinarians through web and mobile apps.

Architectural track:

In parallel to the functional requirements we assisted the SoundTalks engineering team in creating a scalable AWS architecture, ready for high data volumes and stringent security requirements.

Orchestrating a highly effective product development process

We assisted SoundTalks in setting up a sprint-based operating model. We structured the product development process with clear milestones, bi-weekly planning sessions, well-documented user stories and close involvement of the leadership team.

We brought a blended engineering team together with a clear mandate to build and release quickly while safeguarding product quality through extensive automated tests, monitoring tools, stress tests and other instruments in the deployment pipelines.

We’re active in a complex operational setting with limited internet connectivity and challenging digital adoption by our users. We found a great partner in Panenco given their deep expertise from cloud infrastructure towards end-user experiences.

Dries Berckmans

CEO SoundTalks

‍

The SoundTalks team came to us with a challenging assignment: building the digital infrastructure to turn sensor data in pig farms into health insights.

We wish the whole Soundtalks team the very best of luck on their further rollout across the globe. We’re happy to keep supporting you every step of the way!