Optimising Hardware Development with Software Practices

Recorded at CDFAM Computational Design Symposium, NYC 2024Presentation AbstractKiera will discuss Ocado Technology’s additive-first approach to robotics hardware development. This design process, with additive at its centre, unlocks the benefits of agile software development for the world of hardware, allowing the team to create the world’s lightest and most efficient grocery fulfilment bot.Agile practices allowed the team to experiment, learn, and iterate at speed with many of the product concepts being designed in just a few weeks. Achieving these results with traditional manufacturing approaches would have taken many times longer due to the design, tooling and procurement lead times associated with testing multiple concepts.Speaker BioKiera is a Software Engineer on the Industrial DevOps team at automation and robotics platform company Ocado Technology. She joined Ocado Technology in 2021 in the Supply Chain Simulation team in London, working on a site and network digital twin for Ocado’s automated warehouses. In 2023 she moved to Ocado’s Stockholm development centre to join the team developing the next generation of Ocado’s fulfilment robot, the 600 series. Her role in Industrial DevOps is to develop tools that can be used to apply the software concepts of DevOps to the world of hardware development. When she is not writing or reviewing code, she can be found planning her next TTRPG sessionCDFAM Computational Design Symposium series brings together leading experts in computational design from industry, academia and software development for two days of knowledge sharing and networking. Visit CDFAM.COM to learn about upcoming events around the world. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.designforam.com