«We save up to 4 million rubles a year just on salaries»

The agricultural company SPK "Panfilovo" manages 10,000 hectares. The company grows wheat, sunflower, corn, flax, soybeans, and lentils. In 2015, to control the operation of machinery in the fields, the company integrated a digital platform for agri-business management. Director Ivan Aleksandrov shared the process of integration, the problems the system solves, and the results of its implementation.

What We Did

In 2015, we realized the need to control field operations — we wanted to see who, where, how, and at what speed the work was being done. As a result, we installed sensors on the machinery and were able to track all of this in real-time. The next task was to track fuel consumption and calculate the salaries of operators based on their productivity. It took us another year and a half. Some things we were able to do faster, some slower, but all our requests were taken into account. As a result, we reduced staff and significantly cut the payroll fund.

After that, we installed temperature and wind sensors on the sprayers, which we actively use for applying chemicals. Now we can check at any moment whether the requirements for applying plant protection products are being met or not, and quickly react to any mistakes.

Most of our work is automatically transmitted into a single digital environment. Everyone sees up-to-date and objective information, based on which they can make quick decisions — not next season or next month, but literally the next day. We can print out data for any processed field at any time. Want it in digital form or a graph? All sections are "colored" and marked with specific colors. Green — everything is fine, no violations; red — violation of the upper set limit; blue track — a decrease in it. These prints are made for all operations: sowing, harvesting, plant protection application, and soil treatment. This also includes controlling the speed of the equipment. The system allows us to control the speed regime online and quickly react if something goes wrong.

The information is quickly and easily read, and decisions can be made immediately based on it, everything is very flexible. If you know how to use this tool, you can control other aspects as well.

We had a case when an operator broke a harrow, and we understood why thanks to the system. The tractor with the disk was supposed to move at a speed of 14 km/h. But it was supposed to slow down if there was a dip in the field. However, this operator sped over an uneven area, and a crack appeared on the harrow. Based on the track, we determined that the operator violated the speed limit and broke expensive equipment. With this information, we could work with it — for example, hold him accountable for the damages or even consider whether to continue working with him.

How We Measured Efficiency

Everyone is interested in concrete numbers — how much we saved thanks to the system. But I will say right away — it’s not that simple. We can fairly accurately calculate savings in the payroll fund. The system replaced about 4 people, with average salaries of 40,000 rubles, which with taxes amounts to 200,000 rubles per month and 2.5 million rubles per year. If you also consider costs for workstations — computers, lighting, heating, etc., the total comes to 3.5-4 million rubles per year.

But calculating efficiency in numbers is not possible at all levels. Let’s take, for example, minimizing the human factor. The fewer people, the fewer mistakes, and as a result — fewer costs. Even the most responsible and honest employees sometimes slack off or do something wrong. Thanks to the control, we increased the productive working hours of machinery to at least 20 hours per day — this was never achieved before, operators used to slack off. A person went to sow with the tractor — seemingly responsible. But you don’t spend the whole day with them, so you can’t tell how much they were moving and how much they were standing still. Every machinery downtime costs money. If the tractors are working full time, there’s no need to buy additional ones, and that saves money too.

In addition to laziness and mistakes, there’s also theft. If you manage to minimize it, you save money again. Control disciplines people. If desired, the system today can track the entire production chain. For example, one sensor shows how much grain was unloaded, another shows which machine, and a third tracks the movement of the machine — ensuring it didn’t stop anywhere along the road and didn’t unload anything. At the grain reception point, the grain is weighed on electronic scales. As a result, a person with bad intentions is boxed in, realizing that they need to find a way to bypass all these sensors and systems to steal something, and that’s very difficult. I wouldn’t say that we’ve completely excluded the possibility of theft, but now it’s easy to track, and within a day or two, we usually find the culprits.

Where to Start

Experts say that in Russia only 10% of agricultural producers integrate technological solutions to increase the productivity of their businesses. In agri-business, people are cautious about anything new, especially when they have to invest money upfront and then wait for the result. But I would say that automating your farm can be done quite painlessly if you do it step by step. First, test a single feature, see if it works — and then move on.

I think you should start with transport monitoring, install sensors that will transmit data from the machinery. They are inexpensive, and you don’t have to immediately equip all your machinery. Every farm has key tractors and combines that are actively used in the season. It costs about 15,000 rubles to equip one machine. These investments pay off almost instantly once the equipment is in operation. You just need the desire. Machinery monitoring is a kind of basic hygiene; from there, you can expand in any direction. For example, we also have fuel tracking, a button for unloading the auger on the harvester for cleaning — if, at the moment of unloading, my machine with my signal doesn’t light up in the program, I know the unloading is unauthorized.

Looking beyond point solutions, the agri-business management system allows enterprises to first tie together financial, economic, and production plans and then control their implementation to ensure everything is done on time, transparently, and correctly. And since you can see any deviations in real-time, you can intervene in time and correct them. To manage agri-business effectively, you need to have up-to-date and reliable information and know what to do with it. Automation fully addresses the first question, and the only thing left for the owners are the management decisions.