SURF is a cooperative association of Dutch education and research institutions in the field of information and communication technology. Together and with the SURF organisation, they develop, combine and share knowledge about the optimal use of IT in education and research.

One of their services is the SURF Research Cloud, a portal for building virtual research workspaces efficiently. Researchers and supporting engineers can use preconfigured cloud building blocks (workspace templates and datasets) from the catalogue, or add their own. The catalogue’s challenge was to lower the barrier for researchers to create, share and maintain these cloud building blocks themselves and to make the catalogue more self-service.

To tackle this challenge, we first conducted user research to identify the important goals, needs, and pains in creating and maintaining building blocks. We then created a prototype of the proposed solution and tested it with users to ensure it met their needs.

Our advise was to guide the user step by step and focus on preventing errors.

After identifying the most critical issues, we worked in close collaboration with the Product Owner (and domain expert) to design and implement two wizards for creating and maintaining building blocks, like software scripts and workspace templates. The wizards replaced the previously nested forms, which often made the process more complicated than it needed to be.

The final product is a simplified ‘single page’ but multi-step flow. The flow now provides intuitive steps, in-context links to documentation and proper feedback on invalid input, preventing errors and simplifying the process.

We provided SURF with a roadmap and overview of more portal improvements that SURF’s own development team can continue to implement.

The new building blocks catalogue has made it easier for researchers and supporting engineers to create, maintain, and share robust cloud environment building blocks. As a result, there will be less errors in building block management, fewer user questions directed to SURF employees, and the SURF Research Cloud platform is now ready for scaling up to many new users.

‘INFO created perfect flow designs for our most complex workflows and implemented them in close and pleasant collaboration with our top customers and our own development team. Thanks to their work, our customers can now enjoy a vastly improved self-service portal, and we feel confident about scaling up.’ – Ivar Janmaat – Team lead High Performance Cloud

“How do you change the wheels from under a running train?” When working for NS, you automatically end up with a lot of train metaphors, but in this case it was actually the bicycle rentals service that was at stake. NS Stations marked the FRAME application that we built with them as a ‘crown-jewel’, which (among other things) meant they wanted to pull the hosting in-house to consolidate with other NS applications. 

So, INFO and NS together migrated FRAME from the INFO hosting facilities to the NS Azure Cloud, with minimal interruption to the OV-fiets rental and bike parking processes. 

VanMoof is on a mission to get the “next billion on bikes”. Providing first-class service is a crucial part of that. VanMoof wanted to roll out its network of Service Hubs and Certified Workshops from 8 to 50 cities to provide on-demand and on-site service to its VanMoof riders worldwide. It was using too many different solutions to document a repair, which created unnecessary work.

VanMoof therefore wanted to move to one new service platform that could support the whole repair process. They were looking for an agency that could help them build this platform. Quickly increasing development capacity and a short time-to-market were important requirements.

INFO helped VanMoof in this challenge by building a strong team and quickly developing and rolling out the desired platform called “Fixer.”

The municipal pawnshop of Amsterdam, the Stadsbank van Lening, has been around since 1614. Nowadays, it’s an important facility for the city’s underprivileged citizens who temporarily need some cash to repair a broken washing machine, for instance. Almost ten percent of Amsterdam’s minimum-wage citizens uses the Stadsbank. Anybody can come here to take out a loan against submitting collateral, such as a gold ring or diamond earrings. The Stadsbank employee appraises the collateral and determines the amount that the client can loan. The collateral and the loan sum are registered in the pawn system.

The municipality of Amsterdam asked INFO to rebuild and optimize the pawn system that the Stadsbank van Lening had been using for over fifteen years. The main goal? To create more efficiency so that customers can be served faster.

Additionally, from a social standpoint, it’s paramount that customers are able to repay their debts as fast as possible. To encourage this, they also asked us to improve the existing online customer environment.

We mapped out the Stadsbank’s current processes by shadowing employees and by participating in workshops together with employees and other stakeholders. Because many of the Stadsbank’s employees have been with the bank for years, it was very valuable to observe them to find out the old system’s bottle necks.

During co-creation sessions, we came up with the first concepts for the new loan system, which we then validated with the bank’s employees. The goal of the new loan system is to simplify to the process for the employee, so that they can help customers faster.

In order to make sure that we created the right digital product for both the employees and the customers of the Stadsbank van Lening, we worked closely together with the Product Owner and other experts from the Stadsbank during several Scrum sessions.

We were able to improve the most important desk processes. When pulling up customer data, the employee will now have direct access to the customer’s most important data, such as outstanding loans, deadlines and other relevant information. This enables the employee to take immediate action, if needed. We’ve also merged a couple of processes, such as adding new collateral and extending or collecting a pawn, into a single flow, eliminating unnecessary actions. In addition, we’ve integrated all supporting processes, such as management and financial checks.

Besides the new pawn system, we’ve also realized a new online client portal. In the My Stadsbank van Lening environment, customers can view and extend their pawn(s) themselves, as well as lower their loan. Because they are now able to lower their loans themselves, customers are encouraged to pay off their debts faster. Also, this way, they don’t have to come down to the office, which, especially during the pandemic, removes a significant barrier.

Both systems were developed using the newest technologies, which greatly increased productivity during the developmental stages. Thanks to the use of Kotlin we could build the software faster, without compromising on quality and GraphQL made the communication between the frontend and backend developers (much) easier.

Due to the growing world population, food demand will double by the year 2050. Solving this challenge will require smart energy and water saving solutions to enable more efficient food production. Most traditional greenhouse growers, however, only have access to limited and imprecise ways to gain insight into their crops and the surface on which a crop lives and grows (the substrate).

Startup company, Growficient, supports growers in monitoring and optimizing their irrigation strategy, resulting in better production and less waste. Its platform is based on a unique sensor technology that accurately measures soil and climate data, such as temperature, humidity and nutrition, at multiple measuring points in watering sections. This is called precision farming.

Growficient asked INFO to define, design and deliver a flexible and user-friendly platform that translates the comprehensive sensor data from the greenhouse into valuable insights and advice for the farmers.

Growficient’s ambition was to enter the market of precision farming with a specific focus on data-driven irrigation management. Starting with the most advanced market in the world, the Netherlands, Growficient wanted to introduce monitoring software and smart sensors to help Dutch greenhouse growers cement their position as the most advanced in the world.

The challenge was to take the extensive plant knowledge and traditions of Dutch growers and to translate these into a digital platform. The platform requires a safe and reliable connectivity between the sensors and the cloud-based Digital Twin software platform. Growers can then make use of the real-time sensor data to get relevant insights. This supports them in monitoring and optimizing their irrigation strategy.

To properly test the platform concept with growers, INFO mapped the various processes that constitute greenhouse growing today. That meant not just mapping the existing tools they had available, but also the various manual greenhouse processes to understand what type of insights and monitoring capabilities were essential for them to act upon before shaping a product around their needs. With a deep understanding of the everyday working rhythm of growers, it was possible to identify which areas could best be supported or improved, and how.

We identified and incorporated personas on every level of the horticulture industry, from crop consultants to junior growers. We created a series of usability sessions with high-fidelity prototypes to ensure we live up to industry standards. This resulted in an efficient and highly user-friendly interface.

The platform offers powerful insights and visualizations based on real-time data. By combining these incoming data streams with historical data and other data sources (such as weather forecasts) they can be analyzed in a richer context and provide more effective insights. Currently, machine learning algorithms are being developed that will enable to optimize the irrigation strategy, detect errors early and allow autonomous watering.

To better understand the interaction between plants, humans and robots, we conducted research to map out the essential processes involved in a plant’s lifecycle. Through in-depth sessions with stakeholders and interviews with growers, we gained a deep understanding of the Growy ecosystem. This allowed us to define a reliable and feasible starting point, and to determine the steps needed to realize the FaaS solution, including data strategy, an implementation roadmap and a business case.

To support the planning and logistics of the seed sowing and growing of the produce, we designed the Plant Manager. The platform is powered by robotics and IoT-enabled sensors. It automates the seed sowing schedules and manages the capacity of the cells. We used advanced sensor technology and our digital twin capabilities for designing, building, monitoring and optimizing the lighting, watering and climate conditions of the vertical farm. A proper understanding of the optimal plant profile and influencing the time and yield of the produce leads to the vertical farm being operated completely automatically.

Together with Growy, we formed a multidisciplinary agile team to work towards the realization of an MVP. We used an AWS-based, serverless microservice architecture to achieve a flexible, scalable and cost-effective system.

The first version of the Plant Manager was released at the beginning of 2021. It integrates the newest possibilities of data science (AI-driven collection and analysis of optimal growth scenarios) with centrally operating the day-to-day activities of a vertical farm. Combining different technologies, this system generates, captures, analyzes and learns from the data to optimize the plant’s growth. It also manages the farm’s automation, controlling the daily operations and production planning. It allows Growy to fully manage the farming processes and to access the data smoothly and remotely.

Together, Growy and INFO developed a vertical farm that is fully-automated, AI-driven, almost completely circular and with a cost price that can compete with regular farms. The whole concept is simple and efficient, and focuses primarily on plant growth and market demands. This is the first step on our long-term journey and partnership to help Growy to become the world’s most cost-effective, high-quality and sustainable autonomous vertical farm.

The OV-fiets (public transport bike) is part of the NS (Dutch Railways) and facilitates the traveler’s last mile. Each day, the bikes are used by more than half a million people. The digital systems couldn’t keep up with the OV-fiets’ exponential growth over the past few years. So, NS Stations teamed up with INFO to create a solid foundation for their digital platform.

INFO helped to create the digital product strategy and roadmap. Based on this, INFO designed and built several digital products that together create a scalable and future-proof solution. This included FRAME, the complete bike-management application, and several other apps that are necessary to manage the bicycles are a part of this, as well as facilitating the innovative pilot with the new smart locks. As a result, the OV-fiets can continue to grow smoothly and offer the users a positive experience.

To provide all travelers with a bike each day, OV-fiets has to grow. However, the available space per location is limited, so simply adding bikes is not really an option. The solution was in improving the complete bike rental process.

In order to determine the areas for improvement, INFO made the OV-fiets rental chain transparent. Through extensive user research and a service design process, we discovered for instance that there was no possibility of gaining insight into how many bicycles were present at a certain location. In addition, new hand scanners were introduced that had to be outfitted with a new app. Finally, a major problem that the NS was dealing with was that more than 2,000 keys were taken or lost by users each year, leaving the bikes temporarily unavailable. Together with NS, INFO built the digital products needed to solve these issues.

The bicycle-management application FRAME was developed to map the bike rentals. This system provides insight and is scalable so it can keep up with the growth of OV-fiets.

The choice was made to introduce new hand scanners for checking (both OV and private) bikes in and out. INFO developed the React Native app SCANIT that makes it possible for bikes to be scanned super fast.

Finally, the smart lock was developed, which allows bikes to be unlocked with a public transportation chip card, rather than with a key. In support of this new smart lock, INFO developed the React Native app LOCKIT, together with a Service App.