Gday!

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Mon, 03/12/2012 - 10:27 #1

Member for

12 years 8 months
Farmed-Out
Last seen: 05/27/2013 - 10:55
Joined: 03/12/2012 - 09:44

Gday!

Gday guys and girls

New to the forum and throwing up an introduction.

Not a farmer as such but I guess I could be considered a farm hand, myself and several others help a mate run his farm, he's a doctor and owns and leases 8 smallish (biggest about 200 acres) properties and he gets us to keep them running during the week and he does what he can on weekend. Been doing it now for a few years and as a computer salesman/web designer of more than 15 years who went into driving trucks then came back to computers and web design it's an interesting side step. A side step which has seen me spend the last 2 years developing a web based system to help farmers keep their farms running smoothly.Interesting times ahead I am sure.

Anyway enough about me, if you've got any questions let me know, I may not be able to help a great deal with animals but I can fix most things mechanical and I'm also good with computers.

Cheers.

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Tue, 03/13/2012 - 18:44 #2
rogermartyn
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 10/20/2011 - 16:16

Hi Farmed Out

Welcome to the forums.

Good to see we've got a farm friendly 'nerd' on board.

I read your other posting about your farming inventory website - very interesting. I am aware of another web based business involved in selling their services into the mining industry, where through the use of bar codes, bar code readers, and emailing, an inventory is kept  of miscellaneous mining gear such as fire extinguishers, ropes, just about anything, that requires regular checking and reviewing intervals for OH & S, general maintenance requirements etc so that when the time comes up for the item to be reviewed, an email in automatically sent to the mine manager concerend for them to track down the item and look at - evidently very well received where there's a continuous turn over of staff and things are so varied. I'm sure there are parrallel opportunities to be had in farming - basically anything that can save a farmer time and help organise what needs doing and when might work.

regards

Roger

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Wed, 03/14/2012 - 08:57 #3
Farmed-Out
Last seen: 05/27/2013 - 10:55
Joined: 03/12/2012 - 09:44

Hi Roger,

Basically any similar CMS package can be adapted to farming just like my system could probably be used in other fields but the major difference with pretty much anything else we have seen (not saying others don't exist just that we haven't seen them for the right price) is that this system is designed by me (self confessed web guru Cool) but involved farmers from the onset. We didn't just assume what farmers wanted we let them tell us what they wanted. We also allow them to continually tell us what they want and see if we can adapt it to the system. As I said the system might work for other industries but we really didn't design it for that.

As you have suggested KISS is the way to go with such projects and while barcoding etc was thought about initially, during testing we found farmers just weren't as interested as simply providing us with all the relevant information and letting us do the job. I've got access to bar code scanners and printers from my days of running and deisgning e-com stores and we allowed some farmers to use the system we thought would make life eaiser but concerns from bar code stickers falling off to adding new codes for new equipment to needing a record of all items with their registered barcode and scanning the report were thrown out in favour of a simple report like "The Massie needs a new rear tyre". For the more computer literate who can understand barcoding, and databasing etc larger and more expensive CMS packages might be viable and they would work as well as our system does but chances are the farmer would need to do more work themselves.

As for the farm friendly nerd, yeah if people have web or computer questions they want answered let me know I'm sure I can't answer every question but I can give it a go.

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Wed, 03/14/2012 - 13:34 #4
rogermartyn
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 10/20/2011 - 16:16

Hi Farmed out

Top comments on the bar codes, their  lack of durability certainly occurred to me  and besides, not exactly KISS. One thought I've had since, is to attach cattle or sheep ear tags to items requiring records. These can be purchased pre numbered sequentially, are as durable as they come, won't come off, and can be attached to most things - would be  especially good where there are multiple items of the same thing, eg a farmer may have two farm bikes of the same model/ colour etc. I also like the idea of photo's. I've seen this used before in a totally different sort of application (where expensive company items are given to  employees to use) and here's some advantages that occur to me. A picture accompanying a description of an item avoids identification  confusion - some farming terms are confusing to others, including farm employees;  some items comprise of several components, a picture can show these saving description; over time, a picture will give an indication of how much something has worn from new; and finally, a great record for insurance purposes come fire, theft, flood or damage

rgds

Roger

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