New app to help track deliveries

Growers will have delivery information at the touch of their smart phones if a CBH plan to take LoadNet to the next level is successful.

The grain handler is moving into the new age with a team working on creating a LoadNet app that will allow growers to access real-time information on their loads, delivery sites and grain prices from their smart phones or tablets.

Speaking at the South East Premium Wheat Growers TechHead day, CBH Grower Services co-ordinator Chris Badgery-Parker said they first began mulling over the idea of a LoadNet app a couple of months ago after feedback from farmers wanting to access the CBH application via their smart phones and tablets while on the header.

Work on the app started just weeks ago and Mr Badgery-Parker said they aimed to have it up and running by harvest. He said the benefits to growers would be threefold.

"It will allow them to look at their load details while they're out on the header," Mr Badgery-Parker said.

"When they deliver a load, as soon as that load hits our head office computer they'll be able to see it on their phone - see the quality details, everything that we've got about that load on their phone."

That meant growers could make header adjustments on the fly, as the information on the previous load hits their phone, he said.

The app will also link to live CBH grain pricing and alert growers when a target price is achieved.

The CBH team is hoping the app will be able to provide growers with instant information about the services at their local receival points.

That information is now handled by SMS lists that growers subscribe to for nominated delivery sites.

However, Mr Badgery-Parker believes the LoadNet app will be able to offer the same information in a more flexible manner.

"At the moment, you subscribe to an SMS list for each site you're delivering to for each site and when something changes it gets SMSed," he said. "This is great except that you're getting all the information for that site.

"If you're not delivering noodle wheat you don't need to know about noodle services or if you've stopped delivering to that site. With the app you can just switch that off because it's not relevant."

Growers will not be able to use the app to nominate grain, write a contract or quality optimise, but Mr Badgery-Parker said the immediate focus was on the information that was time-critical.

"Ultimately I'd like that you could (optimise and nominate) on the run but it's more important that we get the ability to view the data," he said.