By Ben Allen – CEO, BinSentry
Imagine driving around in a car with no fuel gauge.
Of course – it’s a huge hassle if you run out of gas, but you’ve gotten good at estimating how far you can go before refuelling. You’ve even learned to tap on the tank to judge how empty or full it is based on the sound. And you top off the tank more often than you would if you had a gas gauge, just to be safe.
But in the end, you still top off too often, and run out more often than you’d like. Plus – you’re always on edge and unsure.
It’s ridiculous, right?
You would never operate a vehicle this way.
But this is essentially how the agricultural industry runs the global animal feed supply chain.
The problem with ‘guesstimates’ for supply chain decisions
Every day at feed mills and farms around the world, workers climb tall ladders to peer inside feed bins, or tap on the sides with mallets or rocks to guess at what’s inside.
Then, they call in orders based on those guesstimates.
Mills are reactive rather than proactive: instead of planning and delivering the right feed in the right amounts at the right time, they’re wasting time and money responding to out-of-feed events and emergency orders, unnecessary deliveries, higher close-out inventories and feed returns.
Relying on manual processes to track and order animal feed is the most expensive and inefficient way to go about it.
It’s a horrible way to do things. But for decades it’s all we’ve had.
Fortunately that’s changing.
How AI improves inventory management
Inventory management platforms powered by artificial intelligence (AI) technology are ushering in a new era of increased efficiency, lower costs, higher profitability and improved employee safety.
Here’s how AI stacks up against the old way of managing animal feed supply chains:
Manual systems:
- Rely on time-consuming processes such as visual inspections, manual data entry and spreadsheets, and other methods that are prone to errors and dependent upon the varied skills and capacities of individuals.
- Are reactive with decisions made on the fly based on current estimates, which results in outages or over-ordering with little capacity for predicting future needs.
- Generate unreliable data with limited ability to analyze and identify trends from large data sets.
- Are labor intensive and require significant hours for record keeping, ordering and tracking deliveries.
- Can be hazardous: Climbing bins, in all weather, puts workers at risk: falls from height are one of the leading causes of injuries and death in agriculture.
AI-powered systems:
- Automate data collection with IoT sensors that gather precise, real-time data about inventory levels, and detect feed outages and other anomalies.
- Enable data-driven decision-making to drive efficiency, reduce waste and cut costs. Algorithms analyze feed consumption, detect patterns and adjust forecasts so you can predict future needs and place orders with confidence.
- Reduce waste and improve profitability by eliminating costly feed outages, lower close-out inventories and feed returns.
- Lower labor costs and improve safety. Monitor feed levels remotely and eliminate time-consuming, dangerous manual inventory checks to free up manpower for higher-value tasks.
Here’s what that means for industry leaders using BinSentry’s AI-powered feed inventory management platform:
- Transportation costs: 12% lower
- Hours spent tracking inventory: 95% lower
- Out of feed events: 75% lower
- Close-out inventories and feed returns: 60-95% lower
BinSentry’s AI software and 3-D sensors can improve feed conversion ratios (FCR) at your worst performing sites by up to 7 points, cutting feed costs and improving your bottom line by.
So, yes, you can get by without a gas gauge.
And you can estimate how much feed is left in a bin by banging on it.
But why would you?
AI-powered inventory management isn’t just an upgrade; it’s a fundamental shift to increased efficiency, lower costs, higher profitability and improved employee safety.
By equipping producers and feed mills with AI tools, we’re helping them capture and use data from their own operations to solve real problems and make their lives and businesses better.
Learn more about our solutions for feed mill operators and producers and how our tech is giving some of the biggest names in agriculture a clear operating advantage.
Ben Allen is CEO of BinSentry and an expert on how A.I., data analytics and agtech are transforming the animal feed supply chain.