Gamified Beef Scribing Training App Will Be Showcased

The Australian Meat Processor Corporation (AMPC) is planning to showcase gamified beef scribing technology built by Company-X at conferences across Australia.

Company-X senior software developer and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Jiadong Chen built gamified training for the Australian specialist research and development provider for meat processors. The corporation invited the software specialist to participate in a multi-tender process.

“AMPC set a bit of a challenge to develop a gaming angle towards a common industry problem,” said AMPC Program Manager (Advanced Manufacturing) Stuart Shaw.

“We struggle with attracting technical people in our industry to develop technologies that make processing better. There's a need to keep continually training people.”

“We used beef scribing because it was easy to explain, and we could see potential uses for it.”

Beef scribing, or rib cutting, done correctly, is profitable for the meat processor.

“If you don't get those cuts right, then you lose money from that point on,” Shaw said.

Company-X proposed a proof of concept for a web-based gamified beef-scribing training solution.

Gamification is about motivating users' behaviour with elements that are familiar from typical gaming scenarios and environments, such as offering challenges and earning rewards.

With a mouse on a desktop computer or a pen on a tablet computer, users draw on a digital photograph of a side of beef to show where they think the cuts should go. Those using pens were more accurate than those with mice, but the interactivity of both methods makes the education process engaging for trainees.

Users are timed per carcass, with the time allotted to them diminishing as they progress through the levels.

Users are scored on accuracy, and their score is recorded on a leader board for all users to see.

“When developing this web-based gamified beef-scribing training solution for AMPC, we used the Unity game engine,” said Chen.

“This can be used to create 3D and 2D games, as well as interactive simulations and other experiences. It also supports building games for more than 19 different platforms, including mobile, desktop, consoles, virtual reality, and web. At the same time, we adopted Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store user data and host this Unity web app and deployed all services in the Microsoft Azure cloud’s Australia East data centre in New South Wales, which reduces network latency while meeting data sovereignty requirements.”

The beef scribing solution was a hit with the AMPC and its members, and there are plans to showcase it at conferences across Australia.

“The game was very engaging. It nailed it perfectly. We were very impressed with what Company-X put out there. We got a really good engagement tool,” Shaw said.

“Working with Company-X was certainly a good experience, the way they nailed the brief for the project was fantastic.

“As far as creating training tools through this type of technology goes, we are only touching the surface of what we can do using different combinations of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) and so forth.”

"I was thrilled to hear AMPC loved the beef scribing web app and has plans to showcase it at conferences where it will be used as an engagement tool,” said Company-X AR and VR specialist Lance Bauerfeind.

“We look forward to working more closely with them."

About Company-X

Company-X offers world-leading software savvy delivered with a can-do attitude.

Founded in 2012 by software specialists David Hallett and Jeremy Hughes, Company-X immediately won contracts with New Zealand government departments and a US multinational.

The team has grown to more than 50 New Zealand-based software specialists, with only the best and brightest passing the Company-X interview and assessment process.

The Company-X team prides itself on experience in a wide range of technologies and languages and loves challenging problems.

Company-X ranked on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ Asia Pacific, a list of the fastest-growing technology companies in the Asia Pacific region, in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Company-X has won many awards:

• Company-X won the Best Professional Service Innovation Award in the Hamilton Central Business Association Central Business District Awards 2021
• Company-X software quality assurance tester Jes Elliott won the Reseller News Women in ICT 2021 Rising Star Award.
• The Independent Software Vendor Award at the Reseller News Innovation Awards 2020 for state-of-the-art software that turns text into human-like audio files at a fraction of the cost of booking a voice artist, recording studio and sound engineer.
• The Independent Software Vendor Award at the Reseller News Innovation Awards 2019 for a hands-free auditing application developed for AsureQuality.
• The Service Excellence and Global Operator awards at the Westpac Waikato Business Awards in 2018.
• The Services Exporter of the Year category at the Air New Zealand Cargo ExportNZ Awards 2017.
• The Homegrown Innovators Independent Software Vendors Award at the Reseller News ICT Industry Awards 2017.
• The Roading Asset Management Innovation Award at the Road Infrastructure Management Forum in 2017 for the One Network Road Classification Performance Measures Reporting Tool built for the New Zealand transport sector.

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