DATA EXCHANGE: AN EXAMPLE OF A LARGE HARVESTING CO-OPERATIVE WORKING CLOSELY WITH THE MILL

A DATA management system has been developed in the Harwood Mill area to provide the information required to operate a large harvesting co-operative. The system utilises data transfer from the mill, databases and GIS to provide grower run sheets, harvester run sheets and post harvest equity analysis. In addition, the harvester run sheets are transferred back to the mill and are used to manage average truck trip times. One of the benefits of a large harvesting co-operative is that quotas for each of the harvesters in the co-operative can be adjusted on a daily basis as determined by management. This data exchange process provides the base knowledge so that this flexibility can be fully utilised. The other major benefit of this process is that the time to generate these outputs has decreased considerably, with fewer errors.