Custom Software for Agriculture
The agricultural industry is becoming increasingly data driven and automated, which means custom software has recently become a big player. Today, Andrew and Alexandra discuss some apps we’ve built for ag companies as well as great use cases for agricultural software.
Let’s take a look at some of the apps that we’ve already built in the agricultural space. One is an app for a company that does produce inspections. Their original process involved a lot of pen and paper, inspecting produce inside cold storage. The goal is to ensure that the produce met the standards of their end clients, usually grocery stores. So we transformed this traditional pen and paper process into a mobile application that could be used on the spot and would still work without internet connectivity. A lot of these big produce warehouses are far from cell towers or even once in cold storage are unable to connect. This is a great example of how custom software can shine: taking a very tedious, manual, pen-and-paper process into an automated, end-to-end solution.
We did a similar app for a company that audited the effectiveness of crop spraying. They had a long assessment that was also tedious to do on paper and had similar connectivity problems being out in the field. Likewise, we created a streamlined app that automated and standardized their audit allowing the company to be more effective and more accurate.
A mobile app can be really helpful for providing visibility. Whether that be monitoring many acres or even sensors below ground, these are areas where a mobile app easily solves the problem of not seeing problems that need to be addressed and alerting you to them with a simple push notification.
Project roadmapping looked a little different for our client who audits produce. With them we were able to go into the field to actually see their process in action. We got a very boots-on-the-ground assessment of what they are actually doing, what their process looks like, and what the pain points are. The closer we can get to your process, the better we can understand your success criteria. It’s a lot more than just hitting your timeline and budget. For example, with this client, we were able to see that the staff working in cold storage need to complete the process quickly and it shouldn’t require a lot of find dexterity. These types of details may be unnoticed until the app is actually tested in the field without a proper project roadmapping phase.
Providing an end-to-end solution may mean leveraging both web and mobile technologies. In this case, we built the mobile app for those out in the field doing the assessments and a web app for the clients to be able to see the reports, run analytics, and access the information the produce assessment uncovers. When you want to get information out to a lot of people, web applications are a great fit.
If what we are describing sounds like the solution you’ve been looking for, set up a free app validation meeting today! Get a full hour with our executive team looking at your needs and assessing the cost and timeline for you!
Originally published at https://blog.bixly.com on December 2, 2020.
