Connected silos: a precious help for farmers

Meeting the customer’s requirements is a real challenge for farmers. Professionals in the agricultural sector must therefore be able to adapt and find new solution to optimize their way of working. To overcome these new challenges, the agricultural world must adapt. New intelligent technologies are therefore increasingly used to provide concrete and tangible solutions. Among these solutions, it is now possible to provide the installation of a sensor that will allow the silos to be connected and thus better control stock management.

However, who needs a connected silo? If this solution can address many professionals in the agricultural sector using silos, find out why farmers have every interest in opting for connected silos.

Challenges encountered by farmers

To understand why farmers can be concerned about the solutions provided by a connected silo, let’s first look at the challenges they face on a daily basis in terms of inventory and supply management.

Managing supplies

Farmers must ensure that their farm does not run out of resources needed for its proper functioning. Thus, it is essential that farms have enough feed or grain to meet customer orders. To do this, farmers must manage their stock themselves. This includes ensuring that their silos are sufficiently stocked to meet demand and scheduling deliveries for replenishment.

Urgent deliveries when needed

Despite this management, urgent deliveries may be necessary. A miscalculation or an order for a replenishment delivery may be forgotten and farmers are then constrained to ask for express and urgent deliveries, which are often more expensive and more restrictive.

The farmers’ challenge is thus to avoid last minute shortages or unplanned resource requirements forcing them to place urgent replenishment orders.

Order management: a recuring task with little added value

Checking stock levels and managing orders, while necessary, is often time-consuming. However, these low value-added tasks are recurring. Farmers must therefore organize their days so that they have time for the management part of their operations. These moments dedicated to inventory management mean then less time for other tasks.

How can connected silos solve these challenges for farmers?

The good news is that all of the above challenges can be easily met with connected silos. The sensor installed on the silo will indeed be able to provide concrete solutions to the issues faced by farmers. They will also bring other advantages that are very useful in the daily management of a farm.

Optimize deliveries

Thanks to a connected silo, farmers will no longer need to worry about inventory levels. The sensor installed at the bottom of the silo and connected to a communication network will inform the farmer of the filling level. More than informing, the mobile application connected to the sensor will warn the farmer when the filling level drops beyond a certain predefined threshold. However, the process does not stop at informing and alerting. The application will propose to the farmer to schedule a replenishment when the predefined critical threshold is reached. The farmer will only have to choose between several delivery slots for replenishment.

Thus, deliveries are more continuous and automatic. This allows:

• To be delivered at the best time, especially during off-peak periods, so that you do not have to take care of them during periods when the tasks are multiplied,
• Optimize replenishment orders to benefit from better prices,
• Avoid shortages and the need for costly rush deliveries.
• To be always alerted to stop urgent deliveries.

The last point we just mentioned is a significant benefit for farmers. Urgent delivery on a Sunday or holiday has a cost that should be avoided as much as possible. This is possible thanks to the application’s alerts linked to the sensor installed on the connected silo. Farmers are no longer surprised at the last moment when they need the goods. The connected silo enables better stock control.

Putting an end to manual checks: saving time for farmers

Installing a sensor to connect a silo also allows farmers to avoid manual stock control. With connected silos, farmers no longer need to check stock levels by themselves. The sensor takes care of this itself and transmits the data to the application.

Farmers can then monitor the filling level of their silos at any time, and this even remotely. They no longer need to travel to check. This often tedious task of climbing to the top of the silos is no longer necessary, allowing farmers to save time and energy for other tasks on the farm.

Easy installation and use

To ensure that connected silos are a real benefit to farmers, they must be simple to use and easy to install. There is no need to remove the silo or go inside to connect a conventional silo.

The installation of the sensor at the bottom of the silo is done in about 15 minutes (on one of the feet of the silo). The installation is therefore quick and easy.  The application is also designed to be intuitive so that farmers can use it simply and thus integrate the technology for the benefit of agriculture.