When I opened my Outlook app this morning, the email at the top of my inbox came from Nursery Management, and the headline caught my attention: “Don’t leave the future to chance.” If you’re like me, leaving things to chance is frightening.

At 2nd Sight, we know life happens, but we did our best to anticipate how our equipment would be used (and abused) in the field. We couldn't just cross our fingers and hope that a worker wouldn't get our equipment wet, would not drop a handheld out in the orchard, or hit one of our FairPick scale frames by a tractor.... We wanted to be proactive with the design and selection of our equipment so that you, and our own 2nd Sight team, could sleep well at night.

Rugged equipment

Your employees will drop things, get them dirty, and maybe even wet. It’s no coincidence that we utilize durable and reliable waterproof handheld devices with our labor and product tracking systems. These “Ruggedized Handheld Computers” are designed with safeguards against dirt and debris. They can take on the challenge of daily, outdoor field use. Wondering about the FairPick scale or FlexHub box? A team of experienced 2nd Sight engineers designed these systems to be put to the test too. We don’t recommend mistreating your electronic equipment, but we’ve had scales withstand drops off the beds of trucks and live to tell the tale.

Durable employee badges

RFID technology has become more widespread in many ag and nonagricultural applications. It was another intentional decision to utilize RFID cards as employee badges with our systems. The antenna inside PVC protective layer can only be damaged if completely bent in half. Dirt, dust, water, mud, and sweat do not interfere with the ability to scan an employee’s badge. Barcodes, on the other hand, cannot be read quickly and easily if there is dirt or dust on them, or if the label has been damaged by water or sweat. RFID cards also have the advantage of being reusable from season to season as they can be re-assigned over and over again.

Data integrity

We want to ensure that your data is there when you need it. We can’t just hope that a handheld getting run over by a tractor won’t damage the device’s memory. That’s why we have data stored not only on the device itself, but also on a micro SD card. Once you sync data to the Portal, you now have your data stored in several locations:

• On the handheld (or FairPick Pro box flash memory)
• On a micro SD card in the handheld (or FairPick Pro box)
• On the Portal
• In Portal database backups (yes, we back up your data for you automatically)
• In data logs and reports that you’ve downloaded from the Portal

We know how important it is for equipment to work when you need it to, to have the data ready when you need to run payroll, and to have contingency plans for when life happens. At 2nd Sight, we do our best to not leave the future to chance so that we can all sleep better at night.

Recently, a greenhouse grower in Alberta, Canada implemented the FairTrak system. The grower wanted a way to better track employee productivity per activity at the operation. The FairTrak offered several benefits to help this greenhouse grower achieve his goals:

Flexibility

Track all types of tasks: From hourly, to barcode scanning, to piece type tasks, this grower even uses the FairTrak to type in pallet weights per worker to evaluate worker’s picking efficiency.

Mobility

The FairTrak rugged handheld moves with the crew. The system can keep up with the employees in the greenhouse. The crew boss can unlock the batch mode feature to clock multiple employees in and out of tasks quickly without a badge scan.

Automated reports

The grower can evaluate worker productivity daily with a click of a button. Poor worker performance can be identified and corrected quickly.

Employee accountability

When employees know their time and work are being recorded accurately, they are less likely to abuse employer time. Employees also receive more feedback about the work they perform which can lead to better productivity.

Simple and scalable

The app interface is easy to understand and use and a grower can continue to add additional handhelds to the system as the organization grows. There is no limit to the number of employees that can use one handheld, and annual fees are only associated with the number of units—not the number of people.

This customer said the FairTrak system will pay for itself in only six months tracking 50 people in his greenhouses. This is something that we love to hear at 2nd Sight! Our goal is to save growers money and minimize stress. What better way to achieve this goal with Ag technology and software like the FairTrak! Other greenhouse growers in Alberta are jumping on board, will you be joining them?

In August, 2nd Sight will celebrate five years of being in business and working in the Ag industry. We’ve learned a lot over the years. The article, “The Road to Orchard Robotics Has Not Been Easy" on GrowingProduce.com, validated many of the struggles we’ve faced along our journey of “Engineering Better Solutions for Ag Industry."

At 2nd Sight, we enjoy listening to growers at meetings and tradeshows to learn about the biggest challenges that they continue to face in the specialty crop and commercial nursery industries. When most farm expenses come down to harvest, many agricultural equipment suppliers and tech companies are doing their best to focus on developing orchard and farm machinery and software that improve efficiency, reducing orchard harvest costs.

I thought I’d go through the highlights of the article and explain how 2nd Sight, like many other agriculture technology providers interviewed, has experienced these roadblocks while trying to further automate farming.

“What took you so long?”

Every stage of the process takes time—initial concept, defining specifications, building prototypes, testing (which often can only happen during a small window of time each year), modifications, manufacturing and then implementation on a small scale and large scale. Developing quality products is not an overnight process. We do our best to meet deadlines because we know Ag is often very time sensitive.

If you build it, they will come…. well, if the price is right.

Kevin, our CEO/President, has never questioned the fact that our team of engineers could build a system that would solve a farmer’s problem. But there’s always a qualification to this claim—but you probably couldn’t afford it. A problem really isn’t solved if nobody can afford the technology. We design and build with ROI in mind because it will impact a grower’s willingness to make a purchase.

But, there’s also a responsibility to create something that will function in all types of terrain and for many farms. There’s not only a responsibility, but a necessity. Standardization decreases costs for us as a manufacturer, savings that can be passed along to the grower. A business based on purely custom hardware and software is a tricky one to sustain.

I enjoyed Brown’s comment in the article, “A guy says, ‘I’ve got a standard bin,’ and I say, ‘there’s no such thing as a standard bin.’” It’s why the FairPick has standard, individually tared, RFID or barcode container tracking, individually tared tracked container, and multiple container selection options. Every time we moved to another farm to test our prototype scale, we learned of another way to run fruit harvest.

Trial and Error

The QuickPick is a great example of a farm labor tracking system born out of a grower's desire to solve a problem, field observation, then several rounds of testing and revisions.
Without observation and field trials, we would never have designed a system simple or fast enough to keep up with these pickers (watch this video if you’ve never seen a California tomato harvest). The bottleneck in the harvest process was at punching. Pickers ended up wasting time by standing in line waiting for their tickets to be punched when they brought up their filled buckets. Even ten seconds of waiting greatly reduced efficiency. Eliminating the bottleneck would increase worker productivity, and eliminating the person punching cards would reduce labor costs. A true win-win!

As noted in this article, farmers and their employees tend to be a little tough on equipment…. Observation also confirmed that we had to make the system rugged and robust in order to withstand six months straight out in the field and in the harsh picking environment, and minimal repairs required in the off-season.

I need to see it to believe it, but I have no time to see it.

In the article, Wafler says, “Another challenge is getting a grower to demo a piece of equipment during harvest. Growers are often hesitant to shake up their day-to-day harvest functions in the thick of things. Or even worse, have a workforce that refuses to use the equipment.” This has been a major challenge for us, as well. We’ve had our systems out for three full seasons, working in crops from peppers, pears, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, apples, and even kiwiberries. However, seeing is believing, and many farmers still want to see the machine working at their farms, during their harvests.

It’s almost an art to pull off the harvest demo—choosing the right day, the right variety, the right crew, the right phase of the moon… Harvest is a stressful time of year, and it is difficult for a supplier to get a grower on-board when the time actually comes to see the machine in action.

How 2nd Sight Customers Successfully Tackle Change

• Leave enough time to prepare: There is always a learning curve. The first day of harvest should not be the first time you turn on a new gadget.
• Assign a product champion: Designate at least one person in your organization to be the “go to” person for how to work the system. At least one person must be accountable, and invested in the system to ensure a positive, and successful implementation.
• Have patience: New technology is, well.... new. No amount of testing we do in the office will ever catch all the bugs and the kinks in a product. But when something does go wrong, we’re here to help!
• Be ready to adapt your process: Maximizing efficiency with new technology may require some changes to other parts of your growing operation. Keep an open mind and really ask yourself: “Why do we do it that way anyway?"

Ready to move your farm forward with automation and new tech? We're ready to get you going in the right direction!