My Goat is a two-year-old startup developing automation for the commercial landscaping market. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, the company is primarily a software company and OEMs autonomous lawn mowing equipment.
My Goat has deployed autonomous mowers into commercial environments such as city parks, sports complexes, school properties, as well as cemetery lawn care. The solution leverages a cellular connection to each mower to remotely track, manage and report on the mowing operation.
The parks department in Tuscaloosa, Alabama is an early customer for the service. It deployed several My Goat mowers around the city at city-owned parks and ball fields. Maintenance crews can track operations remotely.
My Goat does not sell solutions to its end users, rather, the solution is offered in a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) subscription model. The company does put the control and operations into the hands of the local property management/landscaping teams. The My Goat mower operators are called “shepherds” (in keeping with the mower/goat theme). My Goat trains the local shepherds how to manage the “grazing” schedule of their “herd” of goats (mowers).
Initial installation on site is provided as part of the setup service. Setup includes the burying of an underground wire which serves as the electronic boundary for the mowing operation. Each mower is deployed permanently onsite and is stored and recharged in its own shed. Recharging via solar panels is possible. If an incident occurs, or a mower breaks down, the customer support team is alerted directly.
A mower can maintain about 2.5 acres a day when mowing the property daily. The mowers are designed to cut efficiently and maintain a constant grass height.
My Goat monitors the performance of each mower through a cellular (or local WiFi) connection. All of the performance data is gathered and rolled up to a cloud-based console for the shepherds to review.
Data presented includes:
- Current status
- Battery charge level
- Goat utilization
- Incident log
- Maintenance schedule
- Fiscal impact
- Gasoline gallons saved
Takeaways
My Goat is one of the first viable examples of a robotic service provider (RSP). RSP’s are becoming the latest innovation in business operations for robotic solutions. My Goat has developed a service built around a solid use case for commercial lawn care that delivers quality lawn maintenance at a predictable rate, where labor may be in short supply.
Customers don’t have to go through the capital approval process or learn how to setup and maintain a complex piece of equipment. Customers can, however, easily control and operate their “herd” of mowers remotely.
The service delivered is easily measured, and the company is building its reputation on customer service and measure service level agreements. My Goat is also lowering the barriers to acceptance of a new generation of field automation solutions.
