Growers mitigate labour pressures with efficient technology

Labour represents roughly one third of greenhouse growers ongoing costs, meaning that even a modest improvement can result in a big impact to bottom line performance. "With rising labour costs and Covid-19 related labour pressures, it is more important than ever to run a highly efficient business that optimises staff productivity," said Managing Director Adam Forbes with BumperCrop. The company has launched high-tech labour management. "In addition to providing more efficiency, we wanted to provide a system that delivers a better outcome overall." 

Smart Insights - Data that Makes the Difference 
BumperCrop’s high-tech labour management focuses on the labour efficiency elements most important for individual operations with its powerful capabilities that allow for customisation, adaption to existing processes and integration with existing systems. By honing in on the key metrics that matter to individual operations, efficiency can be maximised. Some growers have reported labour efficiency gains of up to 20% and saving many hours of admin time per week. 

“In addition to providing more efficiency, we wanted to provide a system that delivers a better outcome overall. Most labour management systems have big upfront costs that result in vendor lock-in, poor support and costly upgrade fees down the road. Instead, we offer an affordable subscription model so growers get value at all times, not just when they start out with the system,” Adam explains.

Fast to deploy - scales as you need
"Growers are busy and don’t have time for extensive meetings or to learn and configure complicated new systems," Adam added and shares how a trial of BumperCrop’s Labour Management System can be up and running in less than 20 minutes once hardware arrives. "After this, it can easily be scaled up as required. This benefits both smaller growers with less staff and large growers who often prefer to start out with a part of their operation."

Improves performance with technology
According to Adam, a carefully thought out and thoroughly tested design minimizes the time it takes to input data. WorkWave™ tags allow staff to easily and accurately log work by waving a device over a tag at the end of each row and to input data. "Growers view the results in near real time and staff become more motivated, as they are able see their performance on dashboards. Growers are then able to use this data to pay staff based on performance." 

Gourmet Mokai Ltd., a 11.4 hectare tomato site that uses BumperCrop’s system.

Less time spent managing, planning more effectively
"Growers realise substantial operational savings by spending less time managing and following up with staff. With all tasks and time worked logged in the system, growers can see an overview of the operation and individual staff performances for any time period. 

Managers use picking data to more accurately anticipate yields before packing starts, helping to achieve better prices. They can also see an overview of problems identified by staff as they work, or understand how much was picked at the same time last season and which rows yielded the most." 

A system that keeps on improving
BumperCrop’s team of technology and user experience experts has been working closely with greenhouse growers to perfect their system over the past 2 years. The entire system is cloud-based, which means that improvements, once tested and verified, automatically roll out to subscribers. A growing number of greenhouse operators are using the BumperCrop system as it becomes a trusted partner for small and large growers alike.

For more information:
BumperCrop
Adam Forbes
www.mybumpercrop.com 
adam@mybumpercrop.com