Before the traditional lawnmower, people used scythes to cut the grass. In 1827, the English engineer Edwin
Question:
Before the traditional lawnmower, people used scythes to cut the grass. In 1827, the English engineer Edwin Beard Budding invented the first lawnmower.
Colonel Edwin George manufactured the first gasoline-powered mower in 1919. The Australian company Victa started production of the first rotary mowers in 1952. After that several models were made. The latest, the robotic lawnmower, entered the market in the year 1995 (by Husqvarna).
Types of lawnmowers There are hundreds of lawnmower models on the market. To get an overview they can be categorized into five general groups (see Figure 1):
1. Reel (cylinder): normally pushed by hand or drawn by a small tractor on large lawns.
2. Electrical: normally based on the rotary principle.
3. Motor: will normally be based on the rotor principle, but the motor can also be found on cylinder lawnmowers.
4. Riding: riding lawnmowers or ride-on mowers (UK) are mostly popular in the US and Canada for large lawns. The operator is provided with a seat and literally rides on the machine. Most use the rotary principle with horizontal multiple rotating blades. A common form of riding mower is the lawn tractor which is designed to resemble a small agricultural tractor (e.g. John Deere).
5. Robotic: normally robotic lawnmowers are based on battery charging. A border wire around the lawn defines the area to be mowed. The robot uses the wire to locate the boundary of the area to be trimmed and, in some cases, to locate a recharging dock.
Robotic lawnmowers are becoming increasingly sophisticated –
they are usually self-docking and contain rain sensors, thereby eliminating human interaction from the grass-mowing process......
Questions
1. As a supplier of the Indego, how should Bosch’s approaches differ in the two types of distribution in Figure 2.
2. Which of the two distribution set-ups should Bosch focus on most?
3. Would you also recommend that Bosch build relationships with the end customer? If yes, which target group should it focus on?
Step by Step Answer:
To address the questions youve presented its important to first understand the context Boschs Indego is a robotic lawnmower which according to your information would fit into the Robotic type category ...View the full answer
