iRobot burro is a drain and pipe cleaning solution. First of its kind it cleans the entire pipeline by itself without any heavy coils or excess human power. It is designed to enter different pipe sizes and move in any direction. burro will help iRobot tap a new market segment and induce growth.

Process

1

Research

Understanding iRobot and their business model.

2

Research

Identifying and researching potential opportunities to diversify.

3

Final Opportunity

4

Idea Development

Narrowing down to one opportunity area: Drain and pipe cleaning market.

Designing the final concept for the chosen opportunity area.

Who is iRobot ?

"Your Helping Hand"

We are a leading global consumer robot company, we design and build robots that empower people to do more both inside and outside of their homes.     

          We are committed to fostering invention, discovery and technological exploration in the pursuit of practical and valuable robot products for the home. iRobot is at the forefront of developing technologies in the areas of mapping and navigation, human-robot interaction, and physical solutions.

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Initial Research

Business Model Canvas

 This canvas traces all of Irobot’s current business structure. Moreover, this canvas aided us in identify the operating cost structure of the company and the partnerships Irobot has with other firms along with it’s other resources such as it’s extensive tech patent list and highly skilled employees

User Persona

We divided our consumers according to several criteria such as location, their lifestyle and does the consumer have a family or not. This research lead us to find our shortcomings, the main problems with our products.

SWOT Ananlysis

After identifying our shortcomings, we created a 'Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat' analysis chart. We plotted our findings and from there we started looking at our weaknesses and threats, and how could we counter them using our resources and strengths. We noticed that a lot of our expensive R&D gets knocked off by counterfeit products and because of that we lose a lot of capital and market share. So that lead us to develop opportunities.

Product Line

IRobot has 3 main product lines, Roomba, Braava, and Root. Out of these 3, Roomba and Braava are really successful, selling over 30 million units worldwide. We also sell accessories which can be purchased individually, this helps our users to maintain their products for the long term and change anything faulty. Currently, Roomba has had around 7 models and the Braava has 5 models   

Competition

Due to our immense success in the Robotic Vaccum market, there is a lot of competition coming up. Big brands such as Dyson are entering the market. We still have the majority of the market share, but our dominance is severely threatened by companies replicating our technology without the R&D cost that we incur. They also undercut our prices making their products look better off. The listed products are our major competition, right now we are dominating this market but we need to innovate to survive. 

Drain and Pipe Cleaning

Drain and Pipeline systems have become severly complex over the years, however the cleaning methods are still the orthodox methods used from 1980 onwards. Hence a modern smart solution to industrial pipeline cleaning would be a novel innovation. Drains and pipes are a big maze and inaccessible by humans due to their small size, a automated robotic solution would be highly efficient in this field.

Drain and Pipe Cleaning was chosen as the final opportunity area.

ABOUT US

ABOUT US

Existing Technologies

Comparative Analysis 

Ideation and Design Development

Ideation 1

Ideation 2

Ideation 3

Reflection and Next Steps

This Project helped me get an in-depth understanding of the business side of design by encouraging me to think about a new market segment and how it would affect Irobot's business. Over the course of 10 weeks, I was able to enhance my research skills, design thinking, ideation, and CAD skills. I was also able to improve my speaking and presentation skills as I presented my final concept to a panel which consisted of industry leaders ranging from entrepreneurs to designers. As the next step for this project, my partner and I would like to collaborate with a development team and create a prototype. We would also look into IP and existing patents so that we can develop a robot that is one of its kind.

This project was completed in collaboration with Indrashish Dutta Roy over a course of 10 weeks for Innovation by Design at Rhode Island School of Design