PHONONIC:

Self-Refrigerated Grocery Tote

In the unprecedented context of a global pandemic, grocery retailers were faced with the daunting task of rapidly scaling their custom order fullfilment capabilities.  This was compounded by  the additional pressures of reducing their CO2 emissions, cutting the energy required to store refrigerated and frozen grocery products, and the ever-present need to maintain those assets at the highest possible level of up-time.

Sundberg-Ferar was tasked with modeling the range of logistical approaches under exploration by grocery retailers, understanding the needs of the workers operating in those systems, and charting a path for the introduction of an industry first self-refrigerated grocery tote.

Market

Commercial Products

Services

Commercial Products • Creative Engineering • Design Research • ExperienceDesign • Industrial Design • Portfolio • ProductDesign • Prototyping

How Can We Redefine Grocery Storage and Tailor Order Fulfillment to Meet Modern Demands?

The Reveal!

With decades of experience in innovative product development, Sundberg Ferar brought a multidisciplinary approach to their collaboration with Phononic. Leveraging their expertise in design research, creative engineering, UX design, industrial design, interaction design, and prototyping, the team approached the project with a deep commitment to understanding the operational realities of grocery logistics. Their goal was to craft a user-centric solution that addressed both the functional needs of retail employees and the evolving demands of the grocery market. This human-centered methodology allowed Sundberg Ferar to model various logistical scenarios, tailoring each to enhance workflow efficiency and usability. By grounding their design in real-world insights, they laid the foundation for Phononic’s revolutionary self-refrigerated grocery tote—a product poised to redefine grocery storage and order fulfillment.

“Before this our innovations were always hard to explain – we were always selling our value in abstract terms.  With these maps we can clearly show what it is we do, and how our product improves and adapts to our customer’s processes.  This gives us a way to show our grocery chain partners how and where we provide value.”

– Phononic Team Member

PHONONIC: Self-Refrigerated Grocery Tote

Human Impact

The introduction of these totes will have a significant positive impact on human operations by optimizing logistics to efficiently handle large-scale custom grocery orders. With the ability to assemble grocery orders accurately, at the proper temperature, and on time, the totes will help streamline processes and reduce errors. Additionally, their design prioritizes usability, making them easy for high-turnover staff members with limited technical training to use effectively. This will not only improve operational efficiency but also reduce training time and minimize labor-related challenges, ultimately supporting a more seamless and reliable grocery delivery service.

Business Impact

Sundber-Ferar’s research played a crucial role in helping Phononic navigate the complexities of developing a new platform for the grocery retail sector. Faced with the challenge of understanding the rapidly evolving landscape of system configurations that grocery retailers were considering, Phononic needed guidance in identifying key development priorities. SF was tasked with pinpointing the minimum viable products (MVPs) necessary for Phononic’s successful entry into this market segment, as well as crafting a system integration strategy for the broad application of their technology solutions. Sundberg-Ferar’s work also helped identify key differentiators for Phononic, including a grocery cooling and storage system built on massive redundancy to avoid single points of failure, an automated just-in-time (JIT) order fulfillment system designed for energy and time efficiency, and a dashboard-based IoT system to integrate online ordering with real-time monitoring and control. These innovations, combined with class-leading ergonomics and usability, position Phononic’s technology as a standout solution in the grocery retail space, offering substantial business advantages in terms of reliability, efficiency, and user-friendliness.

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