Fruit-grower tracks pickers via mobile handsets
Strawberry picker streamlines business using mobile communications system
Fruit grower S&A Produce is saving more than 2,000 man hours a day after implementing an advanced mobile communications system to monitor and manage strawberry picking.
The system comprises information management software connected to a mobile data network, which can track pickers and their productivity.
The company has a fast-growing, transient workforce of about 3,000, and tracking them was becoming increasingly difficult.
Each team of 60 fruit pickers is issued with a mobile device that scans unique codes on the picker’s identity card and fruit collection trays, and sends the data to the server over GPRS.
André Simon, S&A IT director, says that before the introduction of the technology, each picker would have to queue at weighing stations where harvest data is recorded, which took 15 minutes, four times a day.
‘There are no queues now and the longest time someone ever has to wait is five minutes,’ he said. ‘Multiply that by 2,000 people and it is a huge saving, as we pay pickers £5 an hour for standing in the queue.
‘The accuracy and speed of access to data such as automated timesheets also means far fewer queries and errors.’
S&A is looking at further options for data held on handsets, including timesheets for staff planting and pruning strawberry plants.
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