Asset managers crave location data

Harvest time at the vineyard

As resources manager at Scheid Vineyards, Greg Gonzalez is focused on the next harvest. He needs to put equipment in place when the grapes are ready and the weather is right. It’s a chess game complicated by the location of the company’s assets: 146 harvesters, sprayers and trucks to tend to 4,200 acres at 10 vineyards spread over a 70-mile stretch around Monterey and Salinas, Calif.

Vineyard crews play a central role in knowing what’s going on in the field, and since 2010, the company has been analyzing machine data and tracking activity using the Geoforce application. GPS transmitters using CDMA cellular service tell workers where the vineyard’s harvesting equipment is. Accelerometers record how they move. Other sensors record weather conditions and sugar readings in select vines.

Taken together, the results allow managers to evaluate operations: Where and when to move heavy harvesting machines. What harvester movements and idle times say about the efficiency of the machines and their operators. When usage patterns show it’s time to get a mechanic to check on equipment.

Because Geoforce offers mostly text readouts, Gonzalez says the company decided to test out real-time map views. The vineyard’s using a GeoEvent application for Esri’s ArcGIS that renders Geoforce HTML-based data into a dashboard so managers can more easily evaluate operations.

“In agriculture you are doing a lot of reacting to Mother Nature,” Gonzalez says. There’s a big difference between the growing conditions at Hames Valley, where temperatures can hit 130 degrees, and those in the Soledad region, “where maybe it tops out at 88. So managing your resources based on your areas and getting things done efficiently and timely is a big key to profits when it comes to harvest.”

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Excerpt from original article published on September 29, 2014, by Computerworld.

About Geoforce

Combining a cloud-based software platform with ruggedized GPS tracking devices, Geoforce’s Track and Trace solutions bring control to even the most remote field operations. Our asset tracking devices are built for the world’s toughest field operators in these industries: oil and gas, rail, construction, mining, transportation, government/defense, and agriculture. Today more than 1,300 customers track 150,000+ assets in almost 100 countries. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Geoforce operates a research and development office in Bozeman, Montana. Sales and support offices are maintained throughout the U.S. and in Brazil, Australia, and Canada.