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Automating fertiliser supply in Western Australia with Telstra and Cumulocity IoT
Technology Category
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Connectivity Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Agriculture
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
Use Cases
- Supply Chain Visibility
- Tank Level Monitoring
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
CSBP, an Australian fertiliser and chemical company, was facing challenges in managing inventories and supplies of fertiliser during the peak season. As the main supplier of the preferred liquid fertiliser used in farming grains in Western Australia, urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), it needed to be able to meet the needs of the farmers speedily. The farms are spread over tens of millions of hectares in Western Australia, presenting a logistical problem for fertiliser suppliers. The farmers tend to stock up on fertiliser in April/May and when the rains fall they rapidly deplete their tanks. Some larger farms have several tanks to manage. Traditionally, they had to monitor the floating gauges in each tank, waiting until they were empty to re-order, because the fertiliser can only be trucked in whole tanker loads. Third party trucking companies are scheduled by CSBP to collect the fertiliser from the Kwinana, WA, depot. Sometimes these trucks have to deliver to farms that are hundreds of kilometers away from the Kwinana depot. This all adds to the supply chain complexity, especially as so many farmers run out of fertiliser at the same time.
About The Customer
CSBP is an Australian fertiliser and chemical company located in Kwinana, Western Australia - 40 kilometers south of Perth. It is a subsidiary of Wesfarmers Chemicals, Energy & Fertilisers, part of Wesfarmers Limited’s Industrials division. With 600 employees, its products are essential to a variety of Australian industries including agriculture, iron ore and coal mining, nickel and gold extraction and construction. CSBP is the main supplier of the preferred liquid fertiliser used in farming grains in Western Australia, urea ammonium nitrate (UAN).
The Solution
To remotely measure the farmers’ liquid fertiliser product (Flexi-N) CSBP was interested in finding a cost-effective way to implement technology using the Narrowband IoT network (NB-IoT) from Telstra. Australian communications powerhouse Telstra partners with Cumulocity IoT for its smart IoT environment monitoring solution, which enables customers to collect, analyze and act on data from sensors. Cumulocity IoT, together with Telstra, developed a solution to collect data on the levels of fertiliser in the tanks, measuring the levels every 15 minutes and reporting them into CSBP’s systems every four hours. When the level drops to a certain point, it triggers an alert and fertiliser may be ordered automatically. More than 150 of Telstra’s Captis Environment Monitoring IoT sensors were deployed onto tanks around Western Australia, with 26 growers taking part in the pilot during the 2019 growing season.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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