CASE STUDY | SmartCart by IMAGR

IMAGR is a New Zealand start-up company that aims to radically revolutionise retail shopping worldwide by developing a frictionless checkout solution. Their integrated shopping cart scans products in real time, eliminating the need for traditional checkouts.

THE CHALLENGE

• Due to the relocation of a team member overseas, IMAGR had no mechanical engineering resource available within their New Zealand team.
• IMAGR required prototypes of their shopping cart to be built and a “frictionless” charging solution to be developed.

THE SOLUTION

• A Caliber engineer with product development experience was assigned to the project and got quickly up-to-speed.
• Caliber completed significant design updates for a prototype build of the IMAGR basket, taking learnings from previous prototypes, accommodating changes to electronic hardware requirements, and incorporating industrial design elements.
• Basket prototypes delivered during the project supported internal AI system testing and demonstrations to secure investor funding.
• As new mechanical engineers were hired by IMAGR, Caliber was able to facilitate bringing the new staff up to speed quickly.
• During development of the charging station prototypes, Caliber performed analysis, concept development, component selection, and developed test rigs and subsystem prototypes to refine the concept.
• Caliber’s engineer was able to support a resourcing gap within the IMAGR team, allowing hardware development to continue as additional resource was hired. This meant that product development could continue and time to market wasn’t compromised.
• The SmartCart has been successfully commercialised. At the time of writing, IMAGR has ~30 employees across New Zealand and Japan and the SmartCart solution is being adopted in stores, competing with solutions offered by sizable competitors such as Amazon.