Hitachi Vantara (Hitachi) Case Studies Driving Operational Efficiency in Agriculture with IoT: A Case Study on Hitachi Process Intelligence and Google Cloud

	Driving Operational Efficiency in Agriculture with IoT: A Case Study on Hitachi Process Intelligence and Google Cloud Hitachi Vantara (Hitachi)

Driving Operational Efficiency in Agriculture with IoT: A Case Study on Hitachi Process Intelligence and Google Cloud

Hitachi Vantara (Hitachi)

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning
Applicable Industries	Agriculture Food & Beverage
Applicable Functions	Product Research & Development Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Agriculture Disease & Pest Management Livestock Monitoring
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Testing & Certification
Challenge	Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), a global leader in the production and export of livestock, was faced with the challenge of improving product quality, productivity, and global market share. They aimed to drive the adoption of best practices across the industry and improve data collection for enhanced decision making. The business challenge was integrating data across the value chain to drive decision making. This was necessary not only from a supply and demand perspective but also a quality perspective so that farmers could continuously improve and provide the right product at the right time to the right markets. Given that MLA supports 50,000 farms on over 5.2 million acres, they needed collaboration from solution and cloud partners with a deep understanding of the challenges within the meat and livestock industry and the expertise to develop a new internet of things (IoT) digital strategy for collecting data and making data-driven decisions across the value chain. Read More
About Customer	Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) is among the world’s largest and most successful producers of livestock and a global leader in the export of beef, sheep, lamb, and goat meat. To support the industry’s profitability, sustainability, and global competitiveness, MLA delivers research, development, and marketing services to Australia’s cattle, sheep, and goat producers. MLA’s key stakeholders are their 50,000 livestock producer members. To drive leading-edge innovation, MLA engages in strategic partnerships aimed at increasing on-farm productivity and developing industry leadership skills through the use of digital technologies that will drive productivity, quality, and transparency. Read More
Solution	To enable its IoT journey, MLA turned to Hitachi and Google Cloud. Hitachi delivered Hitachi Process Intelligence (HPI) for Smart Agriculture, which allowed MLA’s stakeholders to visually represent individual farm operations and provide insight to decision-making and establish best practices across the supply chain. The solution combines advanced process and data analytics to support business decisions and accelerate business performance. HPI matches livestock operations against best practice frameworks, which combine industry-standard practices with farm-specific solutions to address unique needs. This provides decision support through projections and predictions that are developed using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. The data collection plan included radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags in cattle across a broad range of locations. Hitachi also created a connected network providing linkage from sensors on the ground and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the HPI platform. From field to sky, Hitachi and Google Cloud help Australia’s livestock industry to deploy sensors and capture advanced imaging to provide detailed biomass estimates, cattle head count and high-resolution surveys. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics

Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning

Applicable Industries

Agriculture

Food & Beverage

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Agriculture Disease & Pest Management

Livestock Monitoring

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Testing & Certification

Challenge

Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), a global leader in the production and export of livestock, was faced with the challenge of improving product quality, productivity, and global market share. They aimed to drive the adoption of best practices across the industry and improve data collection for enhanced decision making. The business challenge was integrating data across the value chain to drive decision making. This was necessary not only from a supply and demand perspective but also a quality perspective so that farmers could continuously improve and provide the right product at the right time to the right markets. Given that MLA supports 50,000 farms on over 5.2 million acres, they needed collaboration from solution and cloud partners with a deep understanding of the challenges within the meat and livestock industry and the expertise to develop a new internet of things (IoT) digital strategy for collecting data and making data-driven decisions across the value chain.

About Customer

Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) is among the world’s largest and most successful producers of livestock and a global leader in the export of beef, sheep, lamb, and goat meat. To support the industry’s profitability, sustainability, and global competitiveness, MLA delivers research, development, and marketing services to Australia’s cattle, sheep, and goat producers. MLA’s key stakeholders are their 50,000 livestock producer members. To drive leading-edge innovation, MLA engages in strategic partnerships aimed at increasing on-farm productivity and developing industry leadership skills through the use of digital technologies that will drive productivity, quality, and transparency.

Solution

To enable its IoT journey, MLA turned to Hitachi and Google Cloud. Hitachi delivered Hitachi Process Intelligence (HPI) for Smart Agriculture, which allowed MLA’s stakeholders to visually represent individual farm operations and provide insight to decision-making and establish best practices across the supply chain. The solution combines advanced process and data analytics to support business decisions and accelerate business performance. HPI matches livestock operations against best practice frameworks, which combine industry-standard practices with farm-specific solutions to address unique needs. This provides decision support through projections and predictions that are developed using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. The data collection plan included radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags in cattle across a broad range of locations. Hitachi also created a connected network providing linkage from sensors on the ground and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the HPI platform. From field to sky, Hitachi and Google Cloud help Australia’s livestock industry to deploy sensors and capture advanced imaging to provide detailed biomass estimates, cattle head count and high-resolution surveys.

Impact #1	Implementing smarter processes across the red meat supply chain with HPI for Smart Agriculture and Google Cloud has added value for Australia’s livestock industry. The solution has helped to improve the quality of meat and has generated added revenue, enabled entire-life traceability for individual animals, and created a central data repository and on-site management system for each livestock owner. The combination of HPI for Smart Agriculture and Google Cloud has enabled the creation of innovative IoT strategies for data transmission and communication and cultivated a more agile decision-making environment. The future is even more exciting. MLA stakeholders can look forward to new initiatives, such as leveraging G Suite for smaller farms, Google Hangouts to connect producer groups and Google Assistant to focus farmers and ranchers on priority needs.

Impact #1

Implementing smarter processes across the red meat supply chain with HPI for Smart Agriculture and Google Cloud has added value for Australia’s livestock industry. The solution has helped to improve the quality of meat and has generated added revenue, enabled entire-life traceability for individual animals, and created a central data repository and on-site management system for each livestock owner. The combination of HPI for Smart Agriculture and Google Cloud has enabled the creation of innovative IoT strategies for data transmission and communication and cultivated a more agile decision-making environment. The future is even more exciting. MLA stakeholders can look forward to new initiatives, such as leveraging G Suite for smaller farms, Google Hangouts to connect producer groups and Google Assistant to focus farmers and ranchers on priority needs.

Benefit #1	Large-scale increase in value for MLA
Benefit #2	Studies show that the top 25% of beef farmers are achieving double the profit of the average beef farmer, with the key difference being the adoption of best practice
Benefit #3	HPI for Smart Agriculture can play a significant part in facilitating greater adoption of best practice in farm operations and helping drive increased profit

Benefit #1

Large-scale increase in value for MLA

Benefit #2

Studies show that the top 25% of beef farmers are achieving double the profit of the average beef farmer, with the key difference being the adoption of best practice

Benefit #3

HPI for Smart Agriculture can play a significant part in facilitating greater adoption of best practice in farm operations and helping drive increased profit

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Overview

Driving Operational Efficiency in Agriculture with IoT: A Case Study on Hitachi Process Intelligence and Google Cloud

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit