Medication system for all livestock

The Automed system calculates the optimal medication for a variety of different species including cattle, sheep and pigs, and administers the exact dose and automatically records the data.

This adds the ability to make drugs and treatments traceable and tamper-proof and reduces under and overdosing of livestock.

The system went on the market this year and has already won a string of awards, including the national iAwards, Mobility Innovation of the Year and Industrial and Primary Industries awards.

The company also won the Victorian government's Inspiration of the Year award.

After winning the regional and national iAwards, Automed competed earlier this month in the Asia Pacific Information and Communications Technology Alliance Awards (APICTA).

The newly-established company won the Industry Application award, against 828 participants representing 16 economies from the Asia-Pacific region.

Founder and chief executive officer David Edwards said he was in sheer disbelief when they received the award in Taipei.

"We are thrilled and honoured to have received this award," he said.

"Having just launched this year, we did not expect Automed to be recognised as quickly as it has.

"This shows that we are creating a special product, which has the potential to offer value across the global livestock supply chain.

"The growth of the company since our launch in early 2016 has been rapid, but the development of the platform was an incredibly long road.

"I am proud to accept this award, not just for our dedicated team, but also for Australia and the ACT, which has offered us incredible support along the way."

Automed national sales manager James Yates was in WA last week talking to the first distributor, AgInnovate, as well as sheep and pig producers, lot feeders and industry representatives.

He said industry was finding the automated system appealing, because it took out any variables in dosage and the manual labour of treating large numbers of animals.

"David Edwards started the company in 2012 with the aim of developing a complete medication delivery platform for the livestock industry," Mr Yates said.

"The industry has two systems - treatment systems on-farm and a management system - and there is no link in the middle.

"Industry is relying on the person who is doing the treatment to manually update the records, so this is where Automed fits, right in the middle.

"We have an electronic delivery device, which has ergonomic advantages for the operator and delivers the accurate dose on-farm and records all treatments, then pushes it into the management system electronically.

"We are closing the loop."

Mr Yates said the system would be ideal for WA producers across all species of livestock.

"With an injectable, oral drench, nasal and a pour-on adapter, it is suitable for all applications," he said.

"People are finding it more user-friendly and it fits into the systems they already have on-farm.

"This is the first real exposure WA has had to the system, however, we anticipate a lot of interest which is why we have established a distributor in the region."

The system has a Wi-Fi connection through to the mobile application which controls the device.

The integrated aerial in the adapter identifies the animals by reading their RFID ear tags and automatically records the information about the treatment against the animal, eliminating the need for paper records or double-handling of data - closing the compliance gap.

The system works by using mobile devices and cloud solutions for ease of connectivity.

Mr Yates said it was ergonomic, mobile and easy for an operator to use.

"For the manager it gives him traceability and audit-ability so he can look at what treatments are happening on-site and build the life-cycle animal data," he said.

"For industry, we are trying to integrate with the existing systems to create a solution for the producer.

"It was designed around making the farmer's life easier.

"We are more than just a fancy vaccinator, we are really about the entire system.

"And it's built to integrate with third party software systems and hardware, to complement what's already on the farm."