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 Main subject - mar/apr 2005
continuation: Logistic, from production to seed distribution
In each harvest point there is a personnel that manages the operation of the machines and conducts the trucks loading. On the pad of the harvesting authorization there is the machine that is harvesting, the field that is being harvested, the variety, the harvesting date, the hour of departure of the truck, the tag and the driver's name. According to Martins, it has nothing to do with an official paper, but an internal control document.
"The driver arrives at the reception bin and gives the harvesting document to the balance operator. All the data that form contains is part of the administration program,software adapted to the needs of the company. The information generates a database of the whole harvesting annually. Since planting, it is possible to track the product, per lot. Until the unloading in the reception bin, the harvesting document continues opened; it will only be closed in the hour that the moisture, the purity and the load of the truck is checked. The harvesting document will only be liberated in the computer, when the truck leaves the SCP", the executive of the Agro-Sol describes it.
In the experience of Syngenta, that produces annually, around 1.300.000 sacks of corn seeds (about 14 hybrids) the effort of preserving the identity of the materials, avoiding mixtures on the field and at the storages, involves an enormous work. In the report of Gloverson Moro, firstly there is a work of field isolation, and these should be harvested individually and processed at SCP in the same way.
According to him, a perfect coordination exists among harvest, transport and reception, the only problem occurs with shipment during periods of bad weather. "As all products in movement, it comes with the necessary legal papers. Evidently, it is necessary to remind that there is also legal aspects of the own field - depending on the category of the seed, there is official inspection; there is the internal inspection and the quality control of the own company", Moro describes.
As for the quality verification system when arriving at the scale, technical formulas are usually used, starting from a sample in that all the components are appraised - straw, cob, rotten grain... "The moisture is also checked and the reasonable discounts are made - therefore the grain volume is obtained, observes the executive of Syngenta. Depending on the detail degree and the type of information, the registration of this data can be made through central systems or through spreadsheets, everything computerized.
About the communication form of the SCP with the production field to start harvesting, Gloverson Moro explains that in each area there is a technician responsible and the instruction authorizing the harvesting is given to him. "Then all the operation is launched - equipment, harvesting machine, trucks, etc. And the SCP is prepared to receive", he tells.
Distribution
In Syngenta, the distribution period - sales for planting - suffers variations in function of the area, usually beginning in June and could extend until november, in the central area. For the second crop, the commercialization goes from december to february, sometimes entering in March. The distribution is made based in organization processes of the stock and of quite efficient conference. The loads are accompanied of receipt and of all of the legal documents that involves quality, validity, among other items.
Several management tools are used by the company, and ISO 9001 is in implantation phase. According to Moro, the distribution system is drawn to avoid mistakes. "The maximum that could happen would be a size mistake", he meditates.
Concerning the possibility of distributing the seeds in bulk, system adopted by Syngenta in other countries, the entrepreneur considers something interesting, but he affirms that in Brazil it has not become possible yet. We are "now cogitating the possibility of sending the product in pallets (group of 50 sacks of great capacity, forming a cube), but it is necessary to check if the market accepts that", he observes.
Syngenta has around 240 people involved in the supply part (production research, pre-basic seed, basic seed, production, storage and distribution). Just in the storage part and distribution, there are about 30 people.
In the Agro-Sol, the distribution of the seed to the farmer begins in the second week of september and extends to the first week of december. The work is done based in the requests inserted in the computer program by the commercial department before september. The shipment foresees the destiny, number of varieties or even number of farms in that the material should be delivered. If there is division, the material of the closest farms is put last (there are cases in that the producer has more than one farm and in several times the freight is united - several producers gather and they only pay one freight). Even so, the separation by lots avoids the possibility of mixture occurrence.
The daily shipment capacity is around ten trucks - that with just one staff. The seed is moved on wheels, inside the SCP. The seeds are sold in bags of 40kg. "I start harvesting the material today, and the day after tomorrow it is already stored and sacked, and individualized in block, each lot around 300 bags." Our duty is to deliver the seed with lots completely identified and separated" José Francisco Martins details.
The load is accompanied by a receipt, warranty certificate of the product and information on the quality of the seed - weigh of one thousand seeds, last field test done, planting recommendations and the description of the material, if it is early or late, if there is presence of some disease.
José Francisco emphasizes that staring from planting it is already necessary to have conscience that the field is seed production, and that several requirements need to be obeyed, mainly in the sense of avoiding mixtures, weeds and field deterioration. The concern should proceed up to the farmer that buys the seed.
"Usually, the personnel that plant is the same one that harvests, they already know what was done. That is very good, because in the hour of harvesting they are concerned with the result. If the crop was well cultivated, consequently, harvesting will be good", he argues, reminding that with seeds of GMO, more and more care must be spent to avoid mixtures.
The number of people involved in the logistics, at the Agro- Sol Company, it is around 50, at harvesting time. In the period of distribution, the number rotates around 20 people.
At Sementes Roos, the distribution of the more than 400 thousand is done in 40 days, close to the planting, that is always the months of September and October.
"The stock control should be meticulous, because actually the 20 varieties that we work transform in 40, because there are two types of screens (large and small seeds). And besides there are the certified one and certified two. Then, the number increases to 50, 60 items. And still there are the differences of lots. It is necessary to have a very good software to control all this. Each load is accompanied by a receipt, the analysis bulletin and of the warranty certificate, lot per lot, and still the certificate of no transgenic.
The company has the ISO 9001 as one of the main administration tools, what is reflected mainly in personnel's training, submitted to constant recycling. Besides that, it invests a lot in the technology of softwares, making available a database, that gathers the whole type of information.
According to Arlei Krüger, the whole seed is sold in sacks of 40kg. Alternatives such as big bag packages (sacks from 500 to 1000kg) are still incompatible with the peculiarities of the market. The distribution of the product in bulk is discarded by several reasons, among them the diversity of the customers' size.
At Roos, the number of people involved in the logistics exceeds to 80, among commercialization, laboratory and shipment.
Reception, conditioning and distribution area of seed companies, need to have efficient processes
Summary
The seed companies request more and more managements tools to best assist their customers and maintain themselves in the business. Among the tools a good data bases on the customers and historical of production stand out, which are essential as support for decision making, specific softwares for speeding up processes, personnel's training and attitude proactive. Nowadays taking notes on the tip of the pencil is insufficient.
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