The Client
Sussex Agri Power Ltd is an agricultural contracting business based in Funtington near Chichester, West Sussex. With 25 years of experience, the business provides an extensive range of agricultural services including complete and part farm contracts managing services that include forage harvesting & combining, hedge trimming, compost spreading, drilling and baling. In an industry where equipment management and team safety are major players, much of Sussex Agri Power’s success over the years has been driven by embracing and investing in the latest machinery and enabling its workforce to manage it safely and efficiently.
Our Brief
Clive Tedbury is one of Sussex Agri Power’s founding partners and approached us to implement a system that will, in essence, provide greater visibility of their workers to enable them to track the workflow and job completion. Knowing exactly who is where and with which pieces of machinery will give the management team greater visibility of how jobs are progressing.
As well as providing real-time location-based information, the system’s ability to store more insightful data assists the administrative side of the business. Being able see how long workers are on site was a key factor for Clive. This will mean he can schedule jobs with confidence, there are less likely to be jobs that overrun and business hours can be fully optimised The tracking data gives correct timings of when team members arrive and how long they are there for, which means that the company can provide transparent, accurate customer invoicing.
Last, but not least, Clive was adamant about the role he has to play in duty of care for his employees and wanted a solution which gave his workers added protection. When team members are working long hours, often alone in a field, the management team can login and check who is still out. It’s very common during the harvest season that workers are still out at midnight. If there is a situation where the vans haven’t moved or are at a job that should have finished some time ago, this information will alert management to the fact that there is a potential problem. Whether that’s a problem with the equipment or even more importantly that they could be in trouble or had an accident, the alert will trigger a quicker response to the incident than is currently possible.
The Solution
Following an initial consultation, we recommended the installation of the Foretrack Connect asset tracking system, a SaaS style “out of the box” system which enables customers to get up and running in days.
Often the perception of these systems is they are mainly used in traditional vehicle tracking scenarios, however the concept of live location and utilization has multiple benefits across many sectors. The technology is adaptable across all asset types and sizes, from hand tools to HGVs.
The Foretrack Connect system operates across various communication protocols such as GSM, GPRS, LTE & Bluetooth. This then communciates to the customer’s dashboard or mobile app where data can be manged or alerts and reports set up. This allows the management team to see the exact location of each vehicle, ensuring that all of the team are in the right place at the right time.
Access via an app on a mobile phone is an easy and effective way to stay in touch with the team’s movements, especially during the busy harvest season when all the team is out and about without direct access to the office. This solution also meets the duty of care responsibilities and gives peace of mind that the team are safe & well.
The solution was set up within fourteen days, with vehicles being located through high-resolution satellite mapping & accessed via a desktop or app on phone. This gives the management team total visibility of the fleet, putting them in complete control.
An added bonus is that implementing the Foretrack system has saved them money on their insurance and provides better accuracy with arrival times if the customer wants to know arrival time, as you can clearly track the van whilst on the phone to the customer.
“Having peace of mind by knowing that my guys are safe is invaluable. During the summer months they can be working alone out harvesting until midnight. The Foretrack system allows me to log in to locate where they are when moving from field to farm.”
Clive Tedbury – Sussex Agri Power
“We are proud to work with Sussex Agri Power, our farming industry is under pressure and if we can support more efficiency then that’s a good thing. It’s great our SaaS based out of the box solution suited this application, as it does thousands of others. The way our system is built means we can grow with demand and new use cases. We can even build a bespoke system to a customer specification quickly and easily. This sets us apart from traditional tracking
companies, so no one is shoe-horned into one solution and we can grow with our customers and the ever changing landscape.”
Tom Ross – Foresolutions Ltd