IT is a model to agricultural farms
Information technology impacts our daily lives in every field. Every day innovation is becoming more and more popular. New technology allows to improve processes and run business effectively, especially if it is a diversified company with a broad geography. As the market offers a huge number of IT solutions to automate the management, it is important to implement them and to establish cooperation between all systems.
Over the past few years, team of Agricom Group has successfully implemented a variety of projects introducing the automated control systems of business processes. We had an ambitious strategic aim to have a full control over all business processes and divisions of diversified group of companies.
As a result, the company has the most modern enterprise management system. System functions include all stages of management: strategic and tactical planning, business records and powerful instrument of business analyses. An aggregated system consists of some separate modern IT solutions formed a monolithic system that every minute generates a powerful cloud of management information in all business directions.
The great attention was paid to the automated instruments of business process management of growing, transportation and storage of plants. The important functions for modern plant growing have been automated. Currently, it is easy: to manage any field and boundary information; to plan and control flow process chart of crops; control tillage and performance of vehicles, machinery and operators; manage the use of every seed, fertilizers and plant protection products; control fuel consumption, harvesting and transportation of plants to storage places; manage all operations of elevator storage.
Fr om the very beginning, we tried to implement the receiving of timely management information. At the moment, all head officers: chief agriculturalists, heads of Clusters and a CEO of Agricom Group receive full and detailed information on all business activities fr om “yesterday” till 12 o’clock of the present day. By the way, we do not use any hard copies, e-mails, phone calls. There is a unified information system, one control window, which helps to control all operations and improve productivity. Besides, head officers can manage operations directly and there is no need to be all the time at working place. No matter wh ere you are: in the field, at the office, on your way or at the business meeting. You receive all information from a mobile phone or a tablet. It is a huge advantage, as we can make practical decisions in real time with all operational data at our fingertips.
Another powerful instrument of automated management system is the ability to find a unique management information that is not available in ordinary systems. Our company received this opportunity after the introduction of the most modern program of business analysis in the world. This program makes it possible to trace hidden connections and links. For example, it is possible to trace the dependence of yield dynamics on certain tillage equipment, seeds, plant protection products, or, for example, to predict fuel consumption due to the use of several vehicles.
This very system can provide a full range of information regarding every separate field. The system shows an area size of land and rotation over the past few years; crops that are sown now; used technological maps, equipment and vehicles; vehicles cultivated the land; what farm machinery operators were working; yield; what combines were used; what cars were loaded and when they were unloaded at the elevator; moisture indicators; waste impurities and weight classification. The responsible person receives any information without a single piece of paper anywhere. An access is organized through the Internet that allows to control who receives an information.
Such possibility is a very appropriate for a diversified company that joins a quite number of various companies. The efficiency of decision-making based on the information received in that manner is much higher due to the speed and a variety of opportunities. An expert is not limited by a particular office, as he has an access to his documents and working papers even on a business trip. Every minute, at any time of the day a management receives an accurate and complete information on the state of business. We can monitor online the queues at the elevator complexes. Such possibility let us react quickly and prevent unnecessary delays during the acceptance of vehicles.
By the way, digital technologies in production prevent from accidental mistakes (for example, during the record keeping of material values) and stealing (for example, there is no possibility to steal fuel, as its quantity in the fuel tank is controlled by some devices).
The introduction of new and qualitative decisions is impossible without detailed analysis. To determine the ways to improve the activities in a certain direction, first of all, the company management indicates the strengths and weaknesses, and only then the management considers some options for solutions. It is difficult to get an entire picture without process automation. To increase the efficiency of transport logistics last year, Agricom Group analysed all the details of work processes, their differences and specifics for each cluster. As a result, some number of positive changes were introduced, for example, a three-tier system of harvesting let reduce logistics costs by 20%.
Agricom Group Management Information System
Enterprise system of Internal Communication is the main tool of electronic document flow. This system let approve th documents online, set and perform the tasks, maintain records of the working time and use it as corporate knowledge base. An ability to write massages, a “buzz”, a chat and other ways of operational communication are more than important means of communication for Agricom Group, as its structural units are located within different territories and a lot of employees work “in the field”. Besides, such methods let minimize the use of paper for internal document flow.
Enterprise business analysis system
It can be called the top of the iceberg of Agricom Group Management Information System. This is an instrument of dynamic processing and visualization of information from other systems and databases. Current reports on the situation in the company are received in real time. Agriculturalists, financiers, engineers, logistics specialists and, of course, the top management use this system. Having introduced this system we suceeded to get a tool that, based on different types of incomng information, analyses it and displays an entire information picture.
Enterprise Transactional system
Like most companies, our company also uses a well-known system “1C” that is modified and based on the specific needs of our company and our business processes.. This is a database of all business operations of the company. It is not only the movement of funds for the purchase or sale; it is also the movement of fixed assets and other assets in the Group. Based on the submitted data system let perform some operations and control certain functions (cash outflow, sales, report making: accounting balance sheets, tax and management reports, etc.). A separate functional component is a record keeping of working time and technical resources, management of payroll card programmes, etc.
Enterprise video control system over assets
This system combines two security functions. Physical access let identify the employee and, depending on his needs lim it or grant access to specific objects and record time. There are watching cameras. A round-the-clock access to the information from the video control system does not depend on a certain working place. Loging in the personal page on the Internet website responsible employee is able to view online picture from cameras that are under his control. There is also an access to the recorded archive, if necessary.
Corporate GPS-monitoring of equipment, machinery and vehicles
A hardware component is the device to be installed on machines, vehicles, combines, tractors and other units. A tracing device with built-in GPS tracker, fuel level control and GSM-transmitter is fixed on each vehicle. All online data are sent to the central server for processing by means of software. Such system let run operational reports on the route, fuel usage, time tracking and work performed. Besides, this information system provides visualization of moving objects, field maps, capital facilities through a mutual integration with agricultural management system.
Corporate plant-growing management system:
• Geographic Information System of land bank management
• Management system of agricultural technology
The main users of these systems are employees of the Land Department, logistics department and the department of production and agricultural development. All data on the lands and their cultivation are stored and processed to enable the planning, operational and planned management and reporting based on historical data for a given period. Database of land bank with the ability to share data with “1C” includes visualization of field maps based on the land lease agreements. A wide range of functions allows to receive information according to the specified parameters. The control system of agricultural technologies including database of field certificates and flow process charts of crops is the main instrument of planning, control and management of plant- growing.
Corporate financial management system:
• corporate planning and budgeting system
• Corporate financial reporting system
Financial planning and reporting are very important for any company. That is why it is very important to introduce convenient and effective tools. Based on the text editors some solutions were implemente in our company for financial sector: budgeting and reporting systems that are integrated with other transactional systems of Agricom Group.
Corporate purchasing system
The dynamic development of the company leads to an increase of its partners – suppliers of goods and services. We created a purchasing system for quality and mutually beneficial cooperatation. This system works on the principle of open tender.All orders are processed in automatic mode; the proposals are selected based on the needs. The obvious advantages of this system is a business transparency and an increase of efficiency by minimizing the involvement of human resources.
Petro Melnyk, CEO of Agricom Group
Alexander Kopniak, director of information management system depatrment of Agricom Group
Newspaper “Agromarket“, March 2016