PepsiCo and farm machinery maker Grimme have built a digital replica, or digital twin, of a potato harvester so that farmers and operators can inspect the machine, remove panels and learn how it works in a virtual setting. Potatoes bruise easily in harvest and handling, costing growers heavily, and the two companies are tackling that through training.
The training runs on virtual reality headsets or on tablets, smartphones and desktop computers, and once loaded it needs no Wi-Fi or mobile signal. In the pilot programme, PepsiCo says, bruise-free potatoes rose by 87%, with a 1.7-fold reduction in severe bruising.
The platform was launched last year with pilots in Brazil and Mexico, then taken to Poland and Romania and shown at PepsiCo's Global Agro University in Germany. Rob Meyers, PepsiCo's vice president of global agriculture, told AgNavigator the roll-out is adapted to each region, including language support and training content. "The goal isn't to introduce complexity. It's to make proven expertise available to more operators, in more places, before they enter the field," he said.
The idea came from PepsiCo's use of digital twins to train operators in its factories. Meyers said one of agriculture's biggest problems is giving consistent, high-quality training to operators who may be seasonal, spread out or working in different languages, and that the cost of VR is a fraction of what bruising can cost a farmer.
The report was written by Ryan Daily for AgNavigator.
Photo: Grimme Group / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Source: AgNavigator
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