Development of a real time information system for Clarence harvesters : SRDC Final report CHC002

Abstract

The Clarence Harvesting Co-operative was formed from the amalgamation of two existing harvesting co-operatives, which in the later years of the project consisted of four harvesters cutting a total of between 350,000 and 500,000 tonnes of cane each year. Soon after the formation of the co-operative the managers discovered that access to near real time information about the supply chain was required to realise the benefits of the larger harvesting operation. The required information was available but stored in separate and proprietary systems within the sugar mill. This made it difficult to access, correlate and deliver the information in a meaningful and timely manner to assist harvesting crews. A data transfer system to provide this information was conceived to integrate with a mobile phone-based consignment system planned by NSW Sugar. SRDC provided funding to allow Agtrix Pty Ltd to develop the solution, which was called SHIRT (Supply and Harvester Information in Real Time). SHIRT provided harvesting crews with valuable information about what was happening in the transport and milling operations as soon as the information was available. The data was transferred from each proprietary system in real time to a single external database. The data was then linked and merged, enabling meaningful reports to be collated and delivered to harvesting crews through a web site. Accessing the information through the web site was restricted by employing an access and authorisation process that filtered the data available to users based on their roles (grower, manager etc.), affiliation (farm, harvesting group, mill etc.) and/or their method of access (mobile, touchscreen or computer). Various devices were employed to access SHIRT including (a) a large screen mobile phone used by the supervisor of the Clarence Harvesting Co-operative, (b) touchscreens and modems fitted to either a haulout or a harvester in each crew from which the crews were able to access SHIRT and (c) the NSW Sugar web site used to distribute information to growers. Feedback from an end of season questionnaire and workshop indicated that the information being supplied to the crews was very useful for their daily management. The questionnaire completed by members of the value chain showed an increase in the level of satisfaction compared to the same questionnaire completed 4 years earlier. A couple of crews could not find anything major to complain about and so did not complete a questionnaire. SHIRT was available for use at Harwood for most of 2009 and will be introduced to the other two NSW Mills in 2010. NSW Sugar has incorporated the maintenance of SHIRT into their Service Level Agreement with Agtrix Pty Ltd, thus ensuring that it will evolve with the business and the benefits from this project will remain available to members of the value chain.