Industrial

JBT

VividCloud Steers AGVs Around the World into the Cloud

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A row of white and blue automated guided vehicles (AGVs) with control panels and screens are lined up in an industrial warehouse setting. The AGVs are marked with numbers, positioned under tall, black lifting mechanisms, and seamlessly integrated with cloud migration systems. The floor is clean and well-kept.
Executive Summary
Key Challenges
Solutions
End Results

At A Glance:

$500,000

Return on investment (ROI) for a single vehicle

$6.6 million

saved by a system of 10 AGVs over 10 years

$78 million

saved by the enterprise-wide deployment of AGVs

About The Client:

JBT is a leading technology solutions provider to the global food and beverage industry. With a history spanning more than a century, JBT touches all aspects of food production. Its innovative warehouse automation is central to the way the world lives and prospers today.

Executive Summary

JBT decided to modernize several aging applications that are key to their Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) solutions. A component of the modernization is to get these applications to the cloud.

The first application to be modernized was Layout Wizard. This Windows application is used to design custom routes — the virtual ‘road systems’ — for the AGV fleet operating at their customer’s warehouses, manufacturing facilities, and distribution centers.

Rather than enhancing the existing software, JBT wanted a new application that could run in the cloud or on-prem when necessary. They wanted to modernize the UX/UI, improve performance, and automate the build and deployment processes for this application.

Giving Layout Wizard a modern architecture would support several years of JBT’s product roadmap.

As the world’s population grows, resources are becoming increasingly constrained. In order to produce food sufficient to feed a growing population for decades to come, we, as a society, need to continue to develop sustainable solutions… JBT is committed to empowering our customers with those solutions now.”

Brian Deck,
President and Chief Executive Officer, JBT

Key Challenges

  • Outdated, past-generation technology stack
  • Slow performance of the product by modern standards
  • Error-prone software releases
  • Highly manual efforts were required to maintain and operate
  • A tightly-coupled design hindered innovation
  • Both cloud and desktop audiences were required simultaneously

Solutions

VividCloud’s solution began with a modern approach to web application design, including a single-page client application and an encapsulated service layer. Newer technology choices such as React, .NET Core, and openGL were supplemented with the migration and encapsulation of existing, proprietary core business algorithms from the product.

Cloud-based deployments were handled via an elastic service layer behind load balancing, serving RDS data through CloudFront. A separate release for the new desktop app was delivered simultaneously to satisfy JBT’s second audience.

CI/CD Pipelines

Best practices suggested moving to EC2s, configured with Gitlab runners. This transition immediately improved the overall quality and reliability of software development.

Automated testing unlocked Agile benefits

Breaking free of the error-prone nature of manual testing also unlocked the promise of a true Agile software development cycle at last, instantly pinpointing areas for quality improvement.

AWS Services Provided

  • AWS RDS (SQL Server) is used to persist the application entities.
  • Auto Scaling Groups host the service layer for elasticity in demand.
  • AWS Application Load Balancer provides the access point to the ASG.
  • AWS CloudFront and S3 are used as a CDN for the client application files.
  • AWS Route 53 provides domain registration and management.

End Results

Quality and cost savings rose measurably with the introduction of release management, new CI/CD pipelines, and industry-standard automated testing. Build and deployment errors were sharply reduced, while releases became predictably efficient. As a result, the quality of the product increased while the time and resources needed to maintain the product were reduced.

By modernizing the JBT Layout Wizard application using a cloud-based solution, JBT was able to keep up with the rapidly changing demands of its market. The cloud-based solution provides the scalability and agility needed to quickly respond to changing market conditions and customer needs, providing a cutting-edge, competitive solution consistent with JBT’s global leadership.

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