DESPITE having been born before computers or the internet existed, my grandparents have done their best to keep up with technology.
My gran is all over Instagram, she comments on every photo I post and she has even figured out how to upload her own content.
Beyond that though, she's out of her depth and my mum can't download an app for her iPhone without supervision.
While some who grew up before the internet have struggled to keep pace, others have not only managed to keep up, but get ahead of the curve.
Andrew Ackermans is one of those people.
He started working for CBH Group 40 years ago as a bin attendant in the Lake Grace district.
"I remember my first day vividly," Mr Ackermans said.
He was given a broom and told to sweep some grain which had "just been washed down so the dust was about half an inch thick and stuck to the concrete floor".
"I ended up spending my entire first week alone in a storage bin cleaning the floors," Mr Ackermans said.
He spent about eight years working at the bins and was there when grain protein testing machines were introduced, at which time he joined and ran the team.
All of the samples were brought to the local district office by couriers every day and there was a team of people working 24/7 testing protein samples.
"Up until then we had never seen a computer on site, every single ticket of every single load delivered was written out by hand," Mr Ackermans said.
While some would struggle to transition to a new way of doing things with a new piece of technology they had never seen before, for Mr Ackermans it all came naturally.
"I grew up on farms and grain was in my blood, so I had that background knowledge and at the same time, this new technology was an interest of mine - I liked to dabble in computers and electronics," he said.
"I've always liked to learn and the two things - grain knowledge and computer interest - fit well together."
That was in the early 1990s and over the course of the next three decades, and without any formal education, Mr Ackermans has been involved in the creation of every single computer system used for the receival of grain.
Initially he moved to Perth and became the grain quality supervisor.
Part of that role involved writing the sampling courses and manuals, as well as conducting those courses.
The other part involved helping to design the first online receival system, with Mr Ackermans using his knowledge of what happened on site to provide programmers with the information they required to fill in the needed background data and coding.
"It was basic green screen technology, which in comparison to today's standards is considered dumb but it the mid-1990s it was great," he said.
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"There was a screen, you entered information into it and it was stored, but that was my first exposure to being involved in the design of those systems.
"The first year we rolled that system out I also did the support for it and I can remember picking up the phone, listening to what the problem was and writing the answer down for someone else to read out because I lost my voice."
Since then, he has been involved in updating and making new computer systems for the receival of grain to get the harvest in as quickly as possible by keeping trucks flowing.
He moved into statistics and records, which was the department where most of the computer programming was done.
That department turned into customer services and, between four people, they provided phone support for the programs for the entire company, including marketers, growers and site staff.
That's evolved over the years into the department he now works for - operations systems support - and they're a fair few systems down the road.
"Every year we're changing and evolving the systems because the industry changes so rapidly, rules and regulations change and it's a new challenge every year," Mr Ackermans said.
"That's why I'm still here doing the same job, there's a new challenge every day and someone will come up with something that's never happened before and expect us to be able to figure it out by the end of the day."
Next was a system called Grower Receival Front End, which again was a green screen but a redevelopment of the initial system.
From that they developed an easy-to-use interface which recorded everything anyone did under a unique user ID, so they could see every part of a load, including who sampled and weighed it.
For Saturn, the most recent iteration which is being used in the sample sheds at receival sites, Mr Ackermans was the project manager and led the whole development.
"I love new things and I love technology, I might not have any formal qualifications, but I have experience," he said.
"I couldn't code a program to save myself, but I can tell a programmer exactly how it needs to work and know when they didn't get it right.
"I live in that space so I'm always looking for the next new thing that might come along."
Mr Ackermans also inputs all of the data which supports these systems into the backend every year.
For him, it helps him in designing something so people don't have problems as much as possible and then when they do, being able to solve it.
"My brain is designed to solve problems, that's always been where my strength lies and that's what this entire job revolves around," he said.
"Because I do all of the data entry of the core information which drives the system, I have that knowledge as well, so I can adapt and bend the systems to do the things they need to do at the last minute."
While his focus has always been receivals, they're now stepping into the world of supporting all of the apps which are used for the outloading processes.
On top of that, the next big challenge is set to be fully automating systems as people are taken out of the loop and when that happens, the systems have to be rock solid.
Just automating the weigh bridges has already proved to have its challenges.
While the automation itself is simple, to do that while still complying with rules and regulations for the chain of responsibility is hard without having a person present because there's so many variables.
That's where cameras come into play and that's something they've started to experiment with.
"Last year we introduced some trials for licence plate recognition in the Esperance zone," Mr Ackermans said.
"That was quite successful and the next iteration this harvest will be further trials where we take the person away, because last year there was usually still a person there monitoring the system.
"We'll also start focusing on trying to take people and subjectivity out of the sample sheds by using a camera and a machine to analyse the grain and be able to trust it's right."
Ultimately, Mr Ackermans said his main aim was to make himself redundant, as if he can do that, it means he has made other people's job easier and his role as a support person will no no longer be needed.
However, there's also always new problems and challenges, so while he may make himself redundant from one thing, he's then needed to solve problems somewhere else.
"You don't notice the change when it's happening because you just do it," he said,
"But when I look back and reflect on the way things used to be, you realise it's changed a hell of a lot."