Client Spotlight- Smooth Operators: Nutrien Ag Solutions Adopts Tattle Systems For Enhanced Anhydrous Operations
Nutrien Ag Solutions pride themselves in delivering products to growers efficiently and on time, for example making sure their delivery trucks are on site to top up their on-farm anhydrous ammonia (NH3) carts to keep seeding operations running.
“We thought we ran a pretty smooth operation until we were able to see Tattle Systems in action,” said Tony Degerness, Location Manager for Nutrien Ag Solutions in Melfort, where he oversees the company’s 5,000-tonne per year NH3 business.
Degerness explains that dedicated monitoring is required to keep the product pipeline full from supplier to field with no service interruptions. This meant manual checks of the product level in the bullets (large stationary NH3 tanks), a conscientious team of drivers reporting their locations and how much product they had on board, and tight communication with producers to call for fills for their caddies (NH3 tank carts) in the field.
Nutrien Ag Solutions, a subsidiary of Nutrien Ltd., bills itself as a leading provider of agricultural products and services for western Canadian growers. A key commitment they make is to provide growers with products and services efficiently delivered using the latest technologies. It follows that the company would harness the power of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) through Tattle Systems.
IIoT connects sensors embedded in the tools we use daily via the Internet to computers that can crunch the data. For Nutrien Ag Solutions’ NH3 operation, this means sensors in their bullets, trucks, and carts, all connected via the cellular network to the Internet. Using Tattle Systems, Degerness can see in real-time where all these assets are located from a laptop computer. Drivers access the system via the mobile app to direct them to the next delivery.
“The biggest utilization for us was the caddy monitoring,” Degerness said. “Being able to watch levels and move trucks where needed first. Also, we always have a few producers who forget to call in for a fill. The system gave us a leg up on where we needed to be.”
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Nutrien Ag Solutions was one of the first to adopt Tattle Systems technology. About four years ago, they piloted the system at two of their locations in North East Saskatchewan. North Star Systems provided hardware installation and training on web and mobile apps, as well as online training webinars and support to each location. Finding out exactly where delivery drivers need to be can be challenging in a large parkland service area. The Tattle Systems app, with GPS, allows drivers to quickly find exactly where a grower is currently by working in a remote field. This is especially important for filling carts at night so customers are ready to go first thing in the morning.
Since drivers know where the carts are and how much product they have on board, they can also get the most out of each trip into the fields.
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