Customer Success Story: Bossa Nova

The Challenge

Bossa Nova was founded in 2005 as a spin-off from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, developing advanced robotics technology that has helped some of the world's largest retailers. In 2018, Bossa Nova acquired the artificial intelligence company HawXeye to further advance their AI capabilities, and in 2019, Bossa Nova was on Forbes' AI 50 lists as one of America's most promising AI companies.

The company's newest robot, the Bossa Nova 2020, features an industry-leading AI stack and smart 2D camera system that allows retailers to collect real-time intelligence about their inventory. These amazing robots travel the store aisles multiple times a day to make sure that each product is on the right shelf, in the right place, and if the product is out of stock. Bossa Nova robots are currently operating in over 350 stores across the United States and Europe.

As this AI company continues to grow and prosper, Bossa Nova has placed an emphasis on protecting its IT infrastructure and the valuable equipment used to create their robots. Bossa Nova has multiple locations and doesn't have a reliable method of monitoring environmental conditions between them. Temperature and humidity changes, and water leaks can put their business operations at risk, especially since a majority of the company's IT staff now works from home.

The Solution

Bossa Nova was already a full-stack Cisco Meraki customer with switching, wireless LAN, and security solutions, so they decided to add two types of cloud-managed sensors to its existing deployment. They chose the MT10 Temperature and Humidity Sensor and the MT12 Water Leak Detection Sensor. These sensors, along with all of their existing Meraki solutions, can be managed from a single dashboard.

Todd Shipway, Director of IT and Robot Communications says "Meraki makes it easy for the IT team to learn what they need to do with very minimal training. They don’t need to be experts, which is great for me, because I’m usually busy with other things."

Bossa Nova has experienced temperature related issues in the past with its IT equipment. During one particularly hot summer, the intense heat caused hardware failures in their lab equipment. As a result, Bossa Nova installed the MT10 and MT12 sensors in it's most important IT closets, as well as in an area where up to 15 of their robots are typically being charged at any given time.

The Cisco Meraki MT sensors simplify the monitoring of environmental changes across all of Bossa Nova's facilities. Using the Meraki Dashboard, the company's IT staff can now securely monitor the environmental sensors in real time from wherever they are. They are immediately alerted when the temperature or humidity thresholds are reached or water leaks occur.

The Results

The addition of the Cisco Meraki MT10 and MT12 sensors has given Bossa Nova immense peace of mind knowing that their important infrastructure and assets will be protected in the events of extreme weather conditions, leaky pipes, and other environmental conditions.

In their first few months of deployment, the MT sensors have already helped Bossa Nova avoid at least two different heat-induced switch failures. These failures would have cost Bossa Nova more than $30,000 and would have temporarily halted operations and led to days of lost productivity.

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