Front-Line Follow-Up: Real Feedback from Large-Scale Pig Farms
At six in the morning, a large-scale pig farm on the outskirts was already busy with the day's work. Unlike usual, the person entering the pig house today was not four cleaning workers with high-pressure guns, but one person — holding a remote control, with a low machine slowly advancing along the gutter in front of them.
The water jets precisely scoured the surface, dirt was directed away, and the whole process was quiet and efficient. In half a day, the entire barn's gutter cleaning was complete.
"Before, 4 people washed for a whole day. Now 1 person, remotely operating, finishes the whole barn's gutter cleaning in half a day."
— Equipment supervisor at a partner pig farm
This sentence was written down verbatim in the follow-up team's field notebook. It is not just a comment — it is an anchor. It anchors the meaning of the muanbot series, and it anchors the direction of the team's next iteration.
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Only by going to the front line can you hear the real voice
Muan's follow-up visits are not a formality. The team regularly visits every partner pig farm — not sitting in meeting rooms listening to reports, but going straight into the pig houses to talk face to face with the front-line operators who use the equipment most.
These are the questions they ask:
Battery life — when a shift spans multiple barns, battery decays noticeably in low temperatures. Can single-charge endurance be extended?
Storage — pig farm space is limited; the equipment needs quick storage and transfer after use. Is the disassembly and assembly process friendly enough for a single operator?
Control — is the remote button layout comfortable? Are the travel speed settings right? Does it jam at corners?
Cleaning results — is the water pressure enough? Are blind spots cleaned? Is the diversion direction accurate?
The answers to these questions are not in laboratory data reports, but in the mud-stained work gloves of farm workers and in the operating habits they repeat hundreds of times every day.
"Some problems we could never think of in the lab. The parameters on the drawings look great, but the farm floor is not flat, gutter corners are not 90 degrees, and hose fittings are not always tight. Only on site do you learn which designs truly work and which are just for show."
— Muan R&D engineer
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From the pig farm back to the lab: how feedback becomes product
After every follow-up visit, the team brings back not just a stack of visit records, but a clear list of product iteration requirements. Front-line feedback is categorized, assessed and incorporated into the development plan of the next-generation muanbot series.
Battery life improvement — addressing low-temperature power decay, the team has started optimizing battery management strategy and insulation structure, aiming to extend single-charge endurance to cover a full cross-barn cleaning shift.
Storage convenience — redesigning the folding structure to reduce assembly steps, so one front-line worker can store and transfer the equipment alone without extra hands.
Control optimization — the remote button layout and travel speed settings are fine-tuned to operators' actual habits, and corner passing has been improved.
These changes are not made on a whim. They are spoken by pig farm workers, recorded by the team, and put onto drawings after discussion. After evaluation, project initiation, prototyping and testing, they return to the pig farm — verified by the same pair of mud-stained hands.
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Evolution has no end
"Before, 4 people washed for a whole day" — a true depiction of past labor intensity, and the best footnote to today's efficiency gains.
But Muan's goal does not stop there. The next-generation muanbot aims to solve the question "can one person operate more easily for half a day?" Perhaps the generation after that: "can one person operate multiple units simultaneously, shortening half a day to two hours?"
From the lab to the pig farm, and back from the pig farm to the lab — this complete feedback loop is the underlying logic of the muanbot series' continuous evolution.
Every evolution starts with the mud-stained hands in the pig farm.
Muan · muanbot series
Product delivery is not the end, but the beginning of service
