The tool’s existing support for rice, barley, and soy beans expanded to fruits, vegetables, livestock along with functions for work progress management and sales support functions
Image: Toyota to launch updated agricultural IT management tool. (Credit: Pixabay/41330)
Japanese automotive company Toyota has introduced an updated version of Housaku Keikaku, an agricultural IT management tool, which is will be available to users from April 2020.
Housaku Keikaku’s verification started last October with trials at three sites including SuGWat Farmers, an agricultural company in Aichi Prefecture.
Toyota developed Housaku Keikaku in 2014, by adapting the company’s production system to agriculture, to increase productivity. As a cloud service, Housaku Keikaku was developed to centrally manage paddy fields and enable efficient farming.
At present, the tool is being introduced to 94 agricultural management bodies across Japan to grow seedlings through the management of abnormalities in work processes and costs.
The updated Housaku Keikaku now supports new products including fruits, vegetables, livestock and more, after being requested from agricultural management body, to widely apply the tool not only for rice cultivation but also for outdoor vegetables and greenhouse cultivation.
New functions allow for managing a series of functions
Furthermore, a new function has been added which can centrally manage a series of information on orders, personnel, production, shipping and inventory and could reduce waste loss and shipping delays, for example, by improving the accuracy of production planning for custom-made vegetables, the company stated.
It is now possible to create production and personnel plans, which have been a burden on management and to streamline management operations.
The system line-up includes three types: Type A, Type B, and Type C3. New business management, agricultural machinery management, environmental management and ledger output functions and others are available as options, offering customers to select functions based on their individual needs.
Type A is in line with the previous version of Housaku Keikaku and is for farms that produce rice, barley, and soy beans with land-use crops as the main focus. The price per account has been reduced by 30%.
Type B’s main focus is on a wide range of products and crops such as fruits, vegetables, livestock, and forestry products. It can monitor growth status, formulates work plans and part-time worker shift management based on growth status and on order, delivery, inventory, and harvesting volumes. Type C is for a produce covered by both Type A and Type B.