The global pandemic caused unparalleled disruption to many industries and markets throughout the world, including the agrifood supply chain. Exponentiated by geo–politics, a global lack of truck drivers, wars, weather, climate change, and low inventory because of just–in–time methodologies the levels of disruption have been at a record high. The agrifood supply chain was not built to handle this level of disruption, and as organizations clamber to overcome business obstacles caused by frequently changing, dynamic conditions, they’re looking to technology to help.
SWARM Engineering is enabling businesses through their Software–as–a–Service platform. Using advanced Al and ML they help organizations discover, define and solve challenges in the agrifood supply chain. such as balancing supply and demand, product formulation, inbound or outbound logistics, or resource planning and management. Anthony Howcroft, Founder and CEO of SWARM Engineering was with the CEO Views to share insights into their business story.
A tech–savvy entrepreneur, Anthony Howcroft saw a gap in the market that he knew technology could help address and began his journey building SWARM from the ground up. After a long and varied career in tech, Anthony had been running Microsoft’s Big Data team in EMEA for five years. In this role he got to meet many different organizations looking to make best use of their data. He saw that while many companies were seeking actionable insights from their data, what that often meant was identifying problems which they would then have to go and solve.
Anthony became fascinated by the concept of solving problems directly, and saw that possibility as the next evolution of Bl, fuelled by Al. This is the seed from which SWARM was born.
A Journey of Unparalleled Strength and Success
Since its inception in 2016, SWARM Engineering has gone from strength to strength. It has grown to a team of 24 people, who all share a passion for groundbreaking solutions that can deliver true value to their customers. Receiving approximately $10 million in investments to date, the company continues to show the investors and board of directors the value they can bring to not only agrifood organizations, but the area of Challenge EngineeringTM as a whole.
They have successfully built strong relations with other industry leaders such as Microsoft, and the data science team at Virginia Tech, and have been working on an exciting new integration with OpenAl. This new project elevates their core SWARM Challenge Modeler product, enabling users to build challenge definitions through conversation with a virtual assistant called AVA as opposed to filling out a form. This makes it incredibly easy for businesses to capture tribal knowledge (in multiple languages), and to rapidly learn which parts of the business could become more efficient through the deployment of Al.
“We’ve had exciting opportunities that have seen us expand into new territories in Latin America, and Europe, and we now have our own podcast and a Partner Referral Program. It’s all systems go at SWARM and I could not be any prouder to lead the team here,” says Anthony.
A SaaS Platform with a Multi–Agent Approach
SWARM helps all types of business users solve operational challenges to achieve multi–million–dollar savings. It is a Software–as–a–Service, with three core elements. The first is SWARM Challenge Modeler. This is a unique tool, designed for business users to define a problem in their organization, simply and easily. It comes with templates built by subject matter experts for common food supply chain problems, and they are incredibly flexible, so a client can start by filling one of these in, editing it, or create their own definition from scratch. The result can be published into a beautiful document that can be shared with anyone they choose.
Second comes the SWARM Solution Engine, a sophisticated multi–agent system that can run an array of algorithms to solve challenges defined in the Modeler. It is fully scalable and can combine multiple optimizations to solve end–to–end holistic processes, and not just solve problems in silos.
The end user interacts with the engine via the third piece of the product, the SWARM Ops Dashboard which has a modern, intuitive interface that lets people run solutions, change parameters, experiment with “what–if” scenarios, and ultimately publish executable plans to other users or applications.
Immerse yourself in a subject you are passionate about, yet find time to look at other disciplines and areas. True creativity and leaps forward in tech have come when people combine ideas from different genres.
Embracing Technology and Innovation
The SWARM platform utilizes two hot topic technologies to help elevate the Challenge EngineeringTM sector – nocode and Al. The ability to use Al to discover, define and solve business challenges through the use of nocode platforms offers great opportunities for business users in all areas of the agrifood supply chain. Leveraging the power of AI, SWARM has built a tool that lets any business person define their own challenge, and have Al to solve it for them automatically.
“Technology is our friend, and we are excited by the new approaches and ideas that come to market at an ever–increasing pace,” says Anthony. “One key aspect of SWARM’s architecture is that we don’t have any fixed algorithms coded into our platform. We use a curated library of solutions, and we are always looking for new, better ways to do something. We are hopeful about quantum computing solutions and even though the technology hasn’t made it to market yet, we are ready to take advantage of this, and our customers won’t be stuck with legacy approaches when this breakthrough arrives.”
SWARM is revolutionizing agrifood with Al by giving everyday users access to these powerful tools, without having to under- stand how they work. “Nobody understands how their cellphone or their car works these days – they are stocked full of advanced technology, but we use them effectively as tools. Al will operate in the same way,” Anthony told us. The business users define their challenge, in business terms as opposed to having to understand math or coding, and then SWARM uses advanced Al to deliver a solution. This makes the benefits of Al accessible to everyone.
A Culture of Diversity
SWARM strongly advocates for diversity and inclusion. The SWARM team is a true mix of people from a variety of backgrounds. “It is important to be heard, and we try to keep the management structure as flat as possible and encourage direct conversations between people at all levels,” stresses Anthony. “We are detail oriented, and this attention to detail runs through the organization and is reflected in the people we hire. We encourage everyone to produce documents, presentations, and products that help to tell the story of SWARM, and align with our brand. It is crucial to be able to tell our business narratives in both a consistent and an interesting fashion. There is a work ethic throughout the company too, which comes from the leadership, along with a sense of fun – we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”
Future Outlook: Strategies and Opportunities
SWARM has remained true to the core market of agrifood, but has been receiving increasing requests to extend operations in adjacent markets such as water, timber, shipping, and bio–fuels. “Since our platform is agnostic, it is only a matter of time before we branch into some of these markets to offer the same benefits to new sectors. We are a startup, though, which means we will expand carefully, to ensure we can continue to deliver a high level of service to all of our customers,” says Anthony.
Currently, SWARM has launched a new product development AVA, the AgriFood Virtual Advisor, an Al–powered digital assistant based on OpenAI, Microsoft Azure and SWARM technology. Designed to help businesses in agrifood solve operational challenges and save millions of dollars, AVA will allow users to interact with the SWARM Challenge Modeler delivering personalized insights and recommendations based on a deep understanding of the challenges and the client’s organization.
Words of Wisdom
Technology never stands still, so while Anthony rode the wave of software development, aspiring business minds with an interest in tech are looking to embark on a journey of their own. Advising them Anthony says, “Immerse yourself in a subject you are passionate about, yet find time to look at other disciplines and areas. True creativity and leaps forward in tech have come when people combine ideas from different genres.”
