R-Connect-farmpilot - premiere at Agritechnica 2017

Sittelsdorf / Hannover. At Agritechnica in Hannover, ROPA and Farmpilot presented a comprehensive system solution for networking of all parties involved in order data management in sugar beet harvesting and removal logistics.

R-Connect farmpilot is an intelligently networked and company-spanning farm and logistics management system for essentially increasing efficiency in sugar beet logistics. Thanks to the system-spanning networking, the planning and order data is available immediately to all parties involved without transmission errors. The live transfer from the machine terminal with display of harvesting settings, sensor values, and playback function sets new standards.

Networking of all parties involved in order data management in sugar beet harvesting and removal logistics

Innovation at Agritechnica 2017 - a collaborative development of ROPA and farmpilot

■ The farmer records the data of his or her beet cultivation areas in the sugar factory's farmers portal (area size, desired piles position, desired time of harvesting, contractor/harvesting community)

■ The scheduler of the loader creates a transportation plan in the sugar factory's beet logistics system

■ The sugar factory transfers the farmer's data (farmer's name, farmer's number, field name, field number), incl. transportation plan to the farmpilot server

■ The transportation plan is automatically transmitted to the contractors and harvesting communities as a basis for the harvesting plan

■ The harvester's scheduler has a possibility to change the transmitted harvesting plan in the farmpilot portal and to supplement it with external orders at any time, e. g. biogas beet

■ The harvester's driver starts an order in the farmpilot app. The app automatically transfers via WLAN the farmer's name, farmer's number, field name, field number, driver's name and driver's number to the ROPA R-Touch terminal, in which a new harvesting order is also started simultaneously. No manual data input or operation at a second display is required, thus transmission errors are consequently excluded

■ The scheduler has a possibility to track the order progress in the farmpilot web portal at any time, also on the move via a tablet

■ The GSM connection from the R-Touch terminal to the ROPA R-Connect server allows all essential machine states to be displayed and comprehensibly documented in almost real time during the harvesting

■ As soon as the driver of the harvester finishes the current order in the farmpilot app, this order is also automatically completed in the R-Touch terminal, thus no manual entries are required in the R-Touch terminal

■ All billing-relevant data of the finished order (harvested area, efficiency, consumption, share of empty runs, harvesting speed,...) is transmitted from the R-Connect server to farmpilot. The quantity of beet harvested in the field is also recorded and transmitted, including positions of the beet piles at which the bunker was emptied

■ In the farmpilot, the operator of the beet harvester determines which data is transmitted to the schedulers of the transport planning

■ Based on this data from the ROPA beet harvester, a very detailed transportation planning (also previous cover of beet piles) as well as adjustment of the further harvesting plan are possible in farmpilot

Agritechnica innovations

■ Convenient, faultless and time-saving operation on the sugar beet harvester
■ Selection of orders on the map, no risk of confusion of customers and fields
■ Current progress in harvesting can be displayed at any time
■ Billing-relevant data is available for schedulers shortly after the harvesting order has been completed
■ Once the order has been completed, harvested beet quantity is documented for further transportation and marketing planning