Elon Musk is a genius -- no, for real. From pioneering secure online financial transactions at PayPal to successfully performing vertical landings within his privately owned aerospace company (yes, rocket ships), Elon Musk's brilliance is showcased through every avenue he ventures. Heck, he even tinkered with building a 3-D hand-gesture design platform -- think J.A.R.V.I.S. from Iron Man -- just for fun. And with tweets that went viral about a "flying metal suit" back in 2016, Elon Musk may or may not be the real-life Tony Stark. So when it comes to automobile design, it is safe to assume it will be a masterpiece, right?
Right.
As the CEO of Tesla Motors, Musk's Model S Luxury Sedan is the pinnacle of electric car engineering. Need proof? Immediately upon its release in June 2012, the Tesla Model S won awards including 2013 World Green Car of the Year, 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year, Automobile Magazine's 2013 Car of the Year, Time Magazine's 2012 Best 25 Inventions of the Year Award and Consumer Reports' top-scoring car ever. By 2015, Car and Driver named the Model S the "Car of the Century."
What am I getting at?
The Model S was extensively built around front-end software, accessible via the 17-inch touchscreen in the center console. Yet, due to the car's all-wheel electric motor drive, its 270 miles per charged battery, and its capability of 0-60 miles per hour (mph) in 2.8 seconds, this software interface was overlooked until the first software upgrade was released, offering hands-free driving. That's right: Autopilot. Where traditional cars have "static" or unchanging features, the Model S continued to add more functionality and enhancements throughout the life of the car -- through software upgrade packages. Version 7.1 provided a selfpark and "summoning" feature. The 2016 release of Version 8.0 brought voice commands to enhance the Autopilot feature as well as a recall function for previous and repeatable routes (for example, the trip home from work). Finally, Version 9.0 was released in August 2018, hyped with software-upgradable capabilities for the Autopilot: "Full Self-Driving Capability."
What is there to take away from this?
The picture painted is much like a Da Vinci or a van Gogh: a masterpiece. Musk developed the hardware strategically around the front-end software of the Model S, so that future enhancements could be added to his vehicle by a simple software upgrade at a click of a button. The initial investment in the $85,000 electric car is justified by the consumers, as they are granted the security of knowing that newly developed enhancements can be made accessible to them in the future years and not just proprietary to the newest released vehicle!
What does this have to do with industrial cleaning?
This approach can and should be used as a model for technology within industrial cleaning. With the resources that are available around us today, we can rid ourselves of mediocre technology designed merely to meet the status quo of "now," but then become obsolete within minimal time. Instead, integrate technology to build around computing devices, which provide a product that is safer, smarter and more capable over time. Incorporate products to mirror the Musk strategy of continual upgrades through the touch of a button rather than the purchase of an additional tool with each step-by-step development. Where is this technology available? The sky is the limit. Considering our everyday mobile devices have more computing power than Apollo 11 had to put the first man on the moon, the door is wide open to continuous advances. Mind = blown.
For more information, contact Terry Gromes Jr. at tgromesjr@terydon.com.