Shipping Container Monitoring Service

In 2022, we were contacted by an owner of a shipping container monitoring product, allowing the end-users to track the integrity and environmental conditions inside containers and provide global visibility of goods within. Two separate subcontractors were used to develop hardware and software parts of the product, however their relationship with the customer ended. The customer then turned to PSA, relying on our expertise in both hardware and software development to continue the product’s support and development.

Reliable support and continued development for a container monitoring product, with the goal to continue its manufacturing and enhancement.

Execute a successful transfer of all the intellectual property of the product and prepare it for further development and manufacturing. These activities needed to be done under strict deadlines and budgets.

To execute a successful transfer of all intellectual property, we collected, analyzed, sorted, and coordinated the data from two vendors and structured the documentation in two directions – the Hardware part, and the Server/cloud SW part.

Then we performed the following:

• identified the baseline product versions

• confirmed the reproducibility of the existing products 

• built new application infrastructure in the Azure cloud server

In 30 days instead of the 45 planned initially, we accomplished the Hardware part:

• structured the electrical, mechanical, and firmware documentation for the device 

• structured the manufacturing fixtures design documentation

• performed end-of-line testing and programming

Without access to the device and test fixtures, we performed a complete build of the firmware remotely and matched the build to the production code. We created git repositories for documents and firmware source code, and compared defined document versions with documents used for HW production. 

In 1 month instead of the 6 planned initially, and without prior information about the technology used in the server app and infrastructure used for deployment, we set up and configured a new production infrastructure in the Azure cloud to allow end-customers to monitor their containers. During this time we:

• Collected the application source code, and information about related environments 

• Checked and analyzed undocumented source code 

• Created test cases for SW functional tests

• Designed and deployed infrastructure in Azure cloud

• Performed functional testing and provided a list of bugs

Additionally, we provided the client with comments on the design and software documentation for them to understand the current status of the product, its drawbacks, and ways for improvement.

• Requirements definition
• Documentation validation
• Firmware build and validation
• Deploying in cloud
• Functional testing