The nursery is actually a green factory where a small cutting, plug or seed is used to cultivate something that makes a customer happy. Every day you are doing everything that’s in your power to offer the best quality at a great price. This whole process starts with the planting of input material.Whether it is planned with the moment of delivery of the plants in mind, or from the very start of the cultivation - if a decision has been made that production will take place, you want to know immediately how much input material you need. A decision must then be made where the required input material is to be obtained. Maybe there is still seed in stock, but it is also possible that you have to purchase this or produce it yourself.

Unfortunately, this consideration is often quite difficult. Maybe because the information is not (properly) transparent. This raises questions such as: are my stocks correct? How much do I have to buy? And what if I choose to produce the material myself, can I still have it in time? But also: suppose that I did not purchase enough or that I have too much loss during the plant raising phase, how can I see this in time and respond to it properly?

Imagine if you would have all the answers to these questions immediately available. That would prevent a lot of misery and problems. In this blog I will first address the questions above and then briefly discuss a solution.

1: Insight into current stock of input material

When using material from stock you would like to see what the current stock level is. That makes sense, and this is often information that you can check fairly easily. However, you also want to have insight into the planned stock. For example, suppose you already have a purchase order open at a supplier for 2 kilos of seeds, of which you have reserved 1.5 kilos for another production job, then you want it to be clear that half a kilo is still available.

You may have several locations. Then you not only want to have insight into the stock at your current location, but also into the stock of the other locations so that you can use this as well. You would then want to transfer this stock from one location to the location that needs this material, so that the stocks remain correct.

2: Purchase of input material

Suppose you decide to purchase your input material. You want to order this quickly and easily without unnecessary actions. Here too, time is money. When ordering you must take the date of receipt into account and you prefer to see this date when ordering. In addition, it is easier to combine the required purchasing material for multiple jobs (if that is possible in terms of planning), so that you can minimize administrative operations and realize a volume advantage.

3: Producing input material yourself

If you are going to produce your input material yourself, you want to do this as efficiently as possible. If you have several batches of the same product for which you must produce, you would prefer to combine this. You want insight into production time and where production takes place. That is why there must be a good overview of all locations and where you have space available during cultivation.

To prevent being late with your delivery, you want to immediately see whether it is achievable to have the input material available on time to be able to start the production batch on time. Based on this, you can decide whether to purchase or not.

4: Insight into shortages during the production process

Another problem that can occur is that mismatches happen. For example, during cultivation, the numbers can be lower due to a higher scrap percentage. Or because the demand for plugs used for production is increased, so that more has to be produced.

In small companies these differences can easily be noticed and solved, but at the moment the company is larger and the tasks are divided between several people, these mismatches can have major consequences. For example when the planned batch has already been sold to a customer, but the to-be produced lot cannot meet the demand for this delivery.

Of course you also want to have insight into this. Preferably with a notification that shortages have occurred so that you can take immediate action. In the case that you produce your own input material, for example, you could be notified that you need to purchase additional input material. The moment you encounter these problems during plant production, you still have the option to purchase the promised plants from another grower, so that you can still fulfill the agreements you have made.

How do you get insight into the stock and the order production process?

With software you can make the entire process transparent. All points mentioned above are supported by Agriware, so using this software can save you a lot of problems. It could give you insight in the current and planned stock, you can easily and quickly create purchase orders and the production of input material is much more transparent.

Take a critical look at your business process. Are there problems with mismatches between required input material and the produced material? Do you ever ask yourself why it happens that plant material has to be thrown away because it has been "forgotten"? And does it sometimes happen that delivery cannot take place because it turns out that the yield of a production batch is less than initially planned? If your answer to one or more of these questions is ‘yes’, Agriware can offer a solution.

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