ERP Software For Vertical Farming
Vertical farming is a new process that has many benefits and is becoming a widely used method that is providing sustainably sourced nutrition for the greater population. ERP software adds benefit to the vertical farming process and provides real-time information, guidance, and feedback at your fingertips. In this article, we’ll be exploring what vertical farming software is, and the benefits that ERP technology can bring to the process.
What Is Vertical Farming?
Vertical farming is the use of hydroponic and greenhouse technology to enhance the process of growing plants in vertically layered boxes. Vertical farming takes the advancements of farming and joins them with the current advancements in cultivation technology, providing a condensed and reliable method for crop farming.
In many vertical farming designs, the crops grown are grown without soil, pesticides, or other unnatural materials. Instead, the crops grow in containers with drainage holes that stack vertically. These are specifically designed to ensure that each plant has adequate hydration and nutrition.
At any time throughout the process, they can then be transferred into the main farm to absorb additional nutrients. This style of controlled planting allows the farmers more control over what the plants are fed, how they are watered, and enables them to control growing conditions to provide a more sustainable solution.
Vertical Farming Warrants a Unique Technological Approach
Managing a vertical farm can be complicated - it includes the tracking of production cycles, as well as monitoring plant growth and other data points while ensuring that the plants are getting the right amount of growth factors at a given time.
This monitoring requires manual work and review, which increases the possibility of errors or mistakes in record keeping.
With vertical farming use on the rise, this has become an even more difficult process because there weren’t any software solutions available yet for vertical farmers - until now! And suppose you’re looking to expand your business.
Inecta’s centralized farm management solution was inspired by farmers just like you. With our ERP software tool, you can easily automate all aspects of your grow rooms, including nutrient dosing schedules, asset monitoring and reporting, and more.
Benefits of Vertical Farming
Vertical farming has many benefits for farmers who are looking to grow crops in a more controlled environment. Aside from providing farmers with the opportunity to tailor their crop growing process, vertical farming also enhances food production ability in underserved areas, as well as provides more diverse crop choices, as crops can be grown outside of their normal weather and climate preferences. Below, we’ve added three additional benefits to vertical farming:
Space
A key benefit of vertical farming is that it allows farmers to make the best use of space. As a result, they won't need to make as many rows on their farm’s land, which will free up space for other uses - and be more cost and resource-efficient.
Control of Sunlight (+ Other Growth Factors)
Vertical farms can also provide the same amount of sunlight and nutrients to the crops that they would get from natural locations due to the construction of the structure. Weather worries are a thing of the past thanks to the ability to fully control a plant’s growth environment.
Chemical Free
Farmers might find that vertical farming allows them to grow their crops without dealing with the chemicals typically found in other types of farming. Farmers use fewer pesticides and other artificial agents due to the level of control that they can assume throughout the growing process.
What is ERP Software?
To fully grasp what ERP software can bring to your business, it is important to note that ERP stands for enterprise resource planning (ERP). This program integrates the financials, supply chain, and operations elements of a business. It also assists business owners in streamlining functions such as reporting, manufacturing, and even HR tasks.
How Does ERP Software Impact Vertical Farming?
ERP Software that specializes in vertical farming integrates business activities such as crop selection and planning, order confirmation, production monitoring, and any analysis or reporting processes. The eight additional benefits of ERP software in the vertical farming model are:
Informed decision-making
The Produce Platform from Inecta keeps vertical farming operations monitored and accessible from seed to harvest. This makes it easy to manage your grow racks and ponds, take care of your feeding, oversee seeding, and manage your harvest queues from Inecta's Growing Room feature, which is an essential part of our platform for vertical farmers.
When planting and caring for your crop, you need to know the best information to maximize your success and profits:
How often should you irrigate and fertilize?
What types of nutrients does your specific crop need, and in what concentrations?
Our ERP software helps with air quality features such as temperature, carbon dioxide, and humidity. Each crop may have a different lighting schedule, and we can guide you through the specifics.
Cloud-Based Technology
Manual software is becoming outdated as the rest of the world migrates to cloud-based systems. Clunky processes, slower recall rates, and holes in data can all significantly slow your operations. Sound familiar? If so, you are certainly not alone. Our cloud-based solution allows you to access information in real-time at your fingertips, no matter where you are.
Real-Time Profitability Feedback
Many factors contribute to the overall profitability of a crop during the growing season. Traditionally, either inaccurate or simply insufficient data has resulted in a lack of understanding or application of the actual costs incurred. The Inecta Vertical Farming System automates all activities and costs based on inputs associated with it. In real-time, a clear view of your crop costs and margins can be provided to your team, enabling them to make informed decisions regarding price, which leads to clear maximization of your profit.
Traceability Requirements
Our company provides a comprehensive solution that helps you become Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) label-compliant and electronic produce traceability-ready so that you can track and trace any product quickly from source to delivery. Managing SQF / HACCP / GFSI / FSMA, PTI, and allergen tracking requirements with assurance through Inecta's lot traceability is highly flexible. You choose what features you’d like to track, and the final result is Inecta can help you stay compliant.
Software Support
We are aware that many people are uncomfortable with the idea of making changes to their software. We must ensure that you are always using the newest version of our software, and that is something we take care of automatically for you. For our customer support team to offer you professional advice and assistance when you need it, always reach out to them. From discovery to training to implementation, and even beyond, our dedicated team is there to support you.
Traceable Lots
With Inecta, there is a high level of flexibility in the traceability of lots, which ensures that every part of the supply chain can be tracked from any point forward and backward. Inecta Vertical Farming is committed to ensuring that all products are seamlessly accounted for at all times, as well as making sure that all traces, as well as quality assurance, are tracked and confirmed, enabling you to ensure that your products are traceable.
Grow Room Management
You can utilize Inecta's Grow Room management tool to manage your growing space effectively. With this, you can streamline your seeding, infeeds/transplants, and harvesting. Our specialty is developing software that allows you to manage and allocate the space on your grow racks or ponds to serve our customers better. Additionally, the company can offer RFID integration for the complete automation of the system.
Quality Control And Food Safety
You can guarantee the safety and quality of your crops with the help of vertical farming ERP software, which comes with the following features:
- Inspection, verification, and instruction of quality control procedures
- Make sure that task completions and acknowledgments are kept up to date
- Data collection must be of high quality
- Take advantage of custom COA reports
Keeping a record of lower grade inventory that is disposed of as soon as it does not meet the requirements for quality control
This planning for success can only be accomplished with specialized vertical farming ERP software.
Planning Your Harvest
We will be able to assist you to boost your productivity in many ways by implementing our ERP solution throughout the peak harvest season, including:
- Predict and plan harvest dates according to customer needs and harvest dates that the customer desires
- Using the capacity and forecasts of the Grow Room, devise a seeding schedule for the plants
Planning and managing blends that are grown at different times of the year can be challenging, and our ERP solution makes it easy.
Next Steps For Your Vertical Farming
Vertical farming is a new and exciting industry with huge potential, but it faces some significant challenges. Vertical farming has been around for over 30 years, but the technology used to run these businesses has not kept pace with the growth of this industry. That’s where Inecta can help - taking your growing process to the next level.
Inecta's farm management software is designed specifically for vertical farming businesses. It helps you manage your business from seed to sale by providing real-time visibility into all aspects of your operation. From grow room management to accounting—Inecta makes running a thriving vertical farm easy!
Get in touch with us today for more information about how cloud-based technology can benefit your vertical farming operation.
