Industrial - Bachelors

Specter Plus

The SPECTER PLUS provides fast casual restaurants with a system that will drastically improve their food safety monitoring and operational efficiency. Through the use of 'Optical Character Recognition and 'Infrared Thermal Imaging' crucial data is gathered from each product received and prepared in the restaurant daily. The data is organised in the cloud and displayed on a Bluetooth-compatible device to take care of nearly all food safety reporting necessary.

Finn Pohlner

Design Purpose & Area for Opportunity

“Exponentially increase food safety in fast-casual restaurants by revolutionizing product traceability activities”

(pohlner F., 2022)
Through extensive desktop research, restaurant observations, a user survey and an expert interview several opportunities were identified for this design project. Given this key survey, statistics showed that 72% of respondents agreed that increased human interaction and error compromises food safety. 28% of the establishments which took part in the study stated that they still keep physical food safety books, prone to falsified records.

However, a significant finding identified that 100% of participants believed that the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technology would improve the accuracy and legitimacy of food safety data recorded. This finding gave a direct opportunity for the project to implement this form of technology into a device that would greatly impact the fast-casual restaurant industry at a whole system and individual level.

After identifying this opportunity and with countless design concepts from embedded temperature probes to specialised cooling containers the SPECTER PLUS was born. Through a great deal of refinement and stakeholder engagement, It is safe to say this project successfully achieves its design purpose and opportunity.

Secter plus In Use

The SPECTER PLUS harnesses the text recognition hardware of an adapted OCR camera on the market and packages it in a removable and intuitively designed camera with a charging base. The device utilises machine learning and AI to compile essential product information including use by dates, batch codes, temperatures, quantity & kind of item.

This information is recorded easily with the press of a button for each box and food safety reports and business operations can automatically be conducted using the restaurant’s internal servers. The SPECTER PLUS has been designed to be easily operated and robust for day-to-day use within the restaurant context for each level of employee from team members to inventory managers and restaurant managers. The device will reduce labour costs by reducing the workload of inventory managers and streamlining product tractility activities from stock taking, ordering, receiving and daily prepped products. These different functions are scrolled through and selected using the LCD screen of the rear of the camera and the control buttons below it.

Infromation recognition example

Specter plus use in resturant

Key design features

Camera Design

Charging base design

Specter Plus exploded

Charging Base Exploded

Finn Pohlner

Finn is a passionate and creative emerging Industrial Designer, in university he has developed skills in many areas by undertaking personal and group projects. His key passions include product ideation, CAD visualisation, and physical modelling/prototyping. He plans to grow these skills and build new ones, through industrial design project experience.