SEVERAL pilot programs trialled by the CBH Group will be extended into next harvest, after performing well during last year’s 13.23 million tonne season.
The co-operative’s new mobile Carter’s Delivery Form (CDF) application will be rolled out Statewide during the 2018-19 harvest, allowing those delivering grain to submit their CDF forms online rather than manually.
The app provides real time notifications to the grower of sampling results, the driver’s arrival and departure from the receival locations, information about which sites are open and which grains are being accepted at each site.
The CDF app was initially rolled out at the Metro Grain Centre in Forrestfield, Moora, and Area 7 sites including Brookton, Narrakine, Nomans Lake, Wickepin, Bulyee, Corrigin, Ainsworth, Ardath, Mt Kokeby, Kondinin, Kulin, Yealering and Dudinin.
It was extended in November last year to several sites in Area 3, including Ballidu, Konnongorring, Mclevie, Moora, Piawianning, Pithara, Regans Ford, Watheroo, Wongan Hills.
According to CBH general manager of operations David Capper, the trial had proven the new mobile application improved efficiency and safety at recieval sites.
“There’s a number of benefits to CDF app – it allows us to be able to really accurately track the total delivery process so we can understand and get a lot better information around queue times and delivery times at sites and understand the performance of sites better,” Mr Capper said.
“It also provides real time information to the grower back in the paddock about what’s happening on site – they can instantly see quality data, where there truck is and what part of the delivery process it’s in.”
“It creates a lot of efficiency and safety benefits with a lot less people walking around sites delivering manual forms with all of this information being transferred electronically rather than truck drivers getting out of their trucks.”
Mr Capper said the CBH Group would also be extending a trial conducted last year, in which harvest estimates were formed in a new way.
Close to 70 WA growers participated in the pilot program last harvest, which Mr Capper said allowed CBH to better understand where certain commodities were being grown, and where CBH services were best suited.
“We’re making some changes to the way that we do harvest estimates so that we can get a better picture of what’s out there and also be able to provide our local management teams with better planning tools so that they can put the right services in the right place to optimise growers paddock to port costs,” Mr Capper said.
“We’re trying to understand more accurately where the certain commodities are being grown, rather than just where growers would like to deliver them so we can actually start to map out and understand the total paddock to port costs on a more accurate basis.”
Mr Capper said results of the harvest estimates trial were being finalised, and a decision on the extent of the program’s expansion would be made once its outcomes were finalised.
Also on the agenda this year is continued improvements to Network Strategy sites, including an 80,000 tonne storage upgrade at the Esperance zone’s Chadwick site.
The Network Strategy is the co-operative's plan to reduce recieval sites across the WA grainbelt from 200 to 100 delivery points and improve efficiency within the grain handler's storage and handling division.
Construction is set to begin early this year on four new 20,000t closed circular storage cells at the Chadwick site, taking its storage capacity to 655,000t.
It comes after the Esperance port zone topped its 2.7mt record set in 2016-17 to reach 2.83mt this harvest.
