“Our biggest deal was getting data out of machines.”
CUSTOMER DATA STORY
MEET SCOTT BRADFORD
Scott Bradford is the owner of Bradford Grain in Chanute, KS. Scott is a fourth-generation farmer, who raises corn and beans on a little over 6,000 acres. Scott is passionate about handing down the family business to his own son, who – interest in continuing the Bradford Grain legacy.
“… The tracking and analytics side of it (Farmobile) has grown so much, it’s pretty invaluable at this point.”
Scott Bradford, Bradford Grain Owner
BACKGROUND
Bradford Grain utilizes Record Harvest, an independent precision agriculture company, to help their operation stay ahead of emerging technology. Scott added Farmobile data collection technology to his operations in 2017 to help track his growing fleet and the potential to grow revenue from his data. Since then real-time agronomic and machine data collection has become an invaluable tool to the operation.
As an early adopter of data, what attracted you to Farmobile?
Scott: The thing that really attracted us to start with was the potential for data sales. It has gone above and beyond that now. The machine metrics have become a much bigger role than we dreamed of.
What was your biggest data challenge before Farmobile?
Scott: Our biggest deal was getting data out of machines; and the ability to use some of the data when the monitor goes haywire or you lose a memory stick or something. Still being able to have at least part of the piece of the puzzle has been really nice.
What does it mean to your operation that you’re able to track your mixed fleet?
Scott: I’ve got a great bunch of employees. They are all self-starters, so I am just checking the work is getting done; but it’s nice to be able to pop-up the phone when you wake up and see where the guys are running (via the Farmobile DataEngine dashboard). The (Farmobile historical) playback feature is also really nice. I can see where my operator was running at 2 or 3 a.m. I don’t need to call him at 6 a.m.. So it’s really beneficial.
How does Farmobile fit into your bigger goals and dreams for the operation?
Scott: I think Farmobile has got a lot of really great things coming up. And, things like this take time to build a database. The data becomes usable but we’re getting there. Being able to track hours and downtime is going to be pretty big in the future.