Mining Machine Data, Farmobile Finds Logistics Gold
June 26, 2020 I got a chance to catch up with my long-time friend Steve Cubbage, who spent a couple decades working with data and agronomic best practices as a consultant before joining Farmobile. We connected because the company’s most recent offering, Farmobile Services+ for Ag Retail Fleet, caught my attention.
It’s great to see a new technology offering that’s specifically designed for our core audience, and its focus on one of the trickier aspects of retail management – the field machinery fleet – piqued my interest.
Farmobile’s historic involvement around retail-based equipment had largely been agronomic – tracking and recording data to provide as-applied application reports and deliver variable-rate prescriptions to monitors. But the newest generation of the Farmobile PUC was collecting information and had the ability to discover logistical insights that were previously not understood.
“The untapped potential sandbox was the machine data that was being collected and coming along for the ride, so to speak,” says Cubbage. One retailer who became an early test case actually helped drive the development of the new service by asking the question, “how can I monitor my rigs to avoid exceeding the hour limit in my lease?”
The ability to track machine data using the PUC is a part of the basic service the new offering provides, in addition to other data pointing to overall machine “health.” With PUCs on every piece of equipment regardless of color, including difficult-to-manage tenders, Cubbage says, “it’s like a FitBit for your fleet, giving you a deep, personalized understanding on how the fleet is performing.”
For the retailer, the system manifests itself in a couple of ways. In the heat of the season, the logistics manager can see every unit in real time on screen, and may click on a unit to get a robust picture of its condition, field activity, and readiness for continued work. Cubbage says that you actually get cab visibility of the machine operation, so you can identify and help solve problems as they arise.
During the season, Farmobile provides detailed reporting on the performance of the fleet on a weekly and quarterly basis to ensure retail managers can effectively manage their fleet and make adjustments based on data.
It’s still a relatively new release so there’s almost certainly more to come. But if you’re a retailer looking for help with fleet management, this could be an interesting solution.
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