Recent technology has made significant gains in expanding our ability to utilize computers in industrial applications. There have been huge influxes of data collection in just about every industry. Agriculture is no exception. In fact, agriculture likely produces more data than most other industries. The business of bioenergy and producing quality and affordable agricultural biomass feedstocks for the biofuels industry is no exception.
Data can be an incredibly useful tool for understanding inefficiencies in the feedstock supply chain and can help improve production while decreasing costs. For example, Genera Energy has partnered with seed producers who collect yield data on several varieties of seed planted on a wide range of soil qualities and under a number of weather conditions. This data can be used during the planning and land procurement stages of the feedstock supply chain to ensure that the right varieties of crops are planted on the right fields to help increase feedstock production.
Another area of the feedstock supply chain where data is critical is from harvesting through the final delivery of the product. We must have a way to ensure that our feedstocks are meeting the specifications of our contract with the customer. This is one reason we are working with industry leaders in the field of near-infrared technology. This technology can do in a matter of seconds what used to take several days. By passing the feedstock through the near-infrared scanner we can detect changes in the composition of the material and use this information when managing inventory and delivering our product to the end user.
GPS data can be used in the agricultural industry to plan and track operations in the field for multiple pieces of equipment. We can collect information about the efficiencies of each particular piece of equipment such as fuel consumption, routing, and timing. GPS data can also be used to help coordinate moving equipment to other fields. For instance, trucks could be rerouted around school zones during dismissal time to ensure that they do not interfere with established traffic patterns.
Genera Energy has developed and implemented tools to make it a leader in agricultural data collection and analysis. Let our data skills improve your operations. Contact us today for more information.
By Marshall Hauser, Feedstock Information Systems Developer
