Revolutionise Your Greenhouse Production & Labour Management with PrivAssist Smartline
PrivAssist’s Smartline technology system has improved greenhouse production and labour management issues for commercial greenhouse growers throughout Australia. Virtually every business owner's biggest challenge is labour. Finding and keeping good staff, training, improving productivity, managing staff politics and the rising cost of labour are common challenges to all businesses. This is even more difficult for the Horticultural Industry as conditions are often uncomfortable and the wages are often relatively low. Priva has developed a new system called PrivAssist Smartline, which makes labour management much easier and improves employee accountability. The old adage goes 'If it can be measured, it can be improved.’ The Smartline RFID system makes measurement a breeze.
Benefits of the PrivAssist Smartline System
- Easy to use:The Smartline Reader uses a Radio Frequency Identification(RFID) tag to scan and record a process. No data entry by logbooks or keypads is needed. RFID is becoming the leading data gathering system in factories and other industries, and the introduction of this technology in the horticulture industry is improving the productivity and management ability of greenhouse growers.
- Save labour: Using the RFID to record data increases speed and accuracy. The old-fashioned manual data entry process eats valuable time and is much less accurate. Staff is accountable for their own actions in a very clear, easily documented way.
- Reward staff for their efforts - good staff will thrive on it.
- It is designed solely for horticulture, so it can give you all the informationyou need, in a way that makes sense for your business—in kgs, rows, m².
- Modular system - add to it as you expand.
- Built in comprehensive payroll system with provision for hourly rate, piece rate (contract), or a combination of both.
- Record how may kg’s are harvested, who picked them, how long it took to pick, date, quality, cost per kg by various employees, varieties etc.
- Increase awareness of employee productivity, crop productivity and disease incidence so you can make informed decisions.
- Quality can also be tracked and as a result of being accountable, quality and productivity rise together.
- Makes staff evaluation and payment a breeze - all the data is presented in black and white.
- Can be used to track pests and diseases in the greenhouse as well.
- Fast payback -even a small increase in greenhouse productivity will pay for the system almost immediately.
How Does it Work?
The new Smartline RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system replaces the keypads (they are only used to upload data now) with programmable tags that signify employees, jobs, rows, varieties, pests & diseases etc. These tags are placed throughout the greenhouse and are very robust, waterproof and never need batteries. They can be reprogrammed by the greenhouse management so that anything can be tracked.
When crop workers arrive in the morning, they pick up their Readers and scan their personal ID tag, clocking them in for the day. They then start their first task for the day, for example picking.
Tags are mounted at every row. When a worker is finished picking in a particular row, they scan that row, the task (picking), the variety, and the production. They continue to work like this throughout the morning.
Then when they go for their first break, they take the Reader to an upload point (usually located either at the entrance to the greenhouse and/or at the entry to the staff room) and in a few seconds all the data is sent to the computer for analysis.
At the end of the week, or at any time, the greenhouse manager can create reports from the data that will show all the information that has been collected per employee, in a format that is easy to read and can be used to calculate pay and bonuses for performance.
Case Study in Greenhouse Management Improvement
One of Australia's leading strawberry growers is Berry Sweet. Anthony Yewers, who crops 100 acres in W.A. including 8,000 sqm hydroponically in greenhouses, installed a PrivAssist Smartline system in late 2006.
When asked how the workers find the new system at Berry Sweet, Anthony said that they have become more conscientious, and that the “good workers are getting rewarded for their efforts instead of being dragged down by others, and they know that the harder they work, the more that they will be paid.”
Anthony said that managing his greenhouse staff is now much easier, productivity is much higher and quality is also improving because his workers are now accountable.
Anthony was very pleased that he could now quickly and easily identify the individual worker's production and quality. He is making significant savings in wages as everyone is now pulling their weight. Quality has also improved considerably.
Within 4 to 6 months, the system had paid for itself, and he is saving around $1,000 per DAY. He highly recommends the system to other greenhouse growers.
Start improving your greenhouse production and labour management issues immediately. Ask us for a quote today.
