{"id":16361,"date":"2018-06-18T06:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T06:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceo-na.com\/?p=16361"},"modified":"2018-06-19T20:45:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T20:45:39","slug":"managing-quality-delivery-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/business\/innovation-business\/managing-quality-delivery-chain\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing quality in the delivery chain"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today, the food supply chain starts well before seeds are even planted in the ground.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Produce farmers have changed the way they work forever.<\/p>\n

Food cold chain technologies, such as computer vision, artificial intelligence, and data analysis are tracking fresh produce all the way from the farm to store shelves in an effort to reduce food waste.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have to predict literally a year in advance what our needs are going to be because we contract all of our lettuce\u201d.<\/p><\/div>\n

Thee moment a strawberry is picked in the field, it begins to decay. From there, it\u2019s a race to deliver it fresh to the consumer. This was easier a few generations ago when most people worked in agriculture and lived close to where their food was produced. Distributing food today is more complex as consumers increasingly rely on supermarkets.<\/p>\n

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Today, delivery of perishable food relies on what\u2019s known as the food cold chain. is vastly complex dis- tribution of food from farm to fork relies on maximi- zing the quality and longevity of crops.<\/p>\n

To this end, adding artificial intelligence, computer vision, and cloud computing to food inspections, trucking, and refrigeration is bringing greater efficiency to food logistics.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe goal is pretty simple,\u201d said Dan Hodgson, a partner with Linn Grove Ventures<\/a>, a Fargo, North Dakota-based agricultural venture capital group. \u201cThe environment around that crop, whether it\u2019s on a truck or a plane, has to be just right all through its journey \u2014 it\u2019s in the journey where it gets complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet keeping strawberries at the right temperature by monitoring humidity and air ow is only one problem. e fruit also needs to be delivered to the right markets in the right quantity on the right day.<\/p>\n

Why food cold chains are hot<\/strong><\/p>\n

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That\u2019s where a smartphone app for food inspectors can help, according to AgShift, an agtech AI firm in Santa Clara, California. The company uses algorithms to assist with food inspection at different stages of distribution.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLet\u2019s say we\u2019re looking at 20 strawberries,\u201d said Miku Jha, CEO of AgShift<\/a>. \u201cTwo different inspectors might come back with two different results. What the technology does is to help those inspectors make more objective observations.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photographing produce and sending the images to the Cloud for analysis allows AgShift to leverage computer vision and deep learning algorithms to assess the quality of produce each time it\u2019s inspected on its journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cDigitization and automation really make an impact on efficiency,\u201d Jha said.<\/p>\n

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More accurate inspections give sellers better insights into the shelf life and pricing of specific shipments of produce. Knowing the quality of each box of strawberries\u2014and other perishables\u2014serves as a baseline for the many kinds of decisions that are taken along the food cold chain.<\/p>\n

Tech before planting<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Put simply, today, the food supply chain starts well before seeds are even planted in the ground.<\/p>\n

Produce farmers literally map out every inch of field with GPS technology, already knowing what factors could affect planned crops. \u201cWe have to predict literally a year in advance what our needs are going to be because we contract all of our lettuce and broccoli acreage,\u201d said Bruce Taylor, CEO of Taylor Farms in Salinas, California.<\/p>\n

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The delivery chain process now relies on artificial intelligence, computer vision, cloud computing to food inspections and precision to deliver efficiently.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIf we lose a customer, we\u2019ve got too much lettuce. If we gain customers too fast, we run short. And so it\u2019s a huge planning exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor said the process requires sufficient precision that the company plants its greatest volume of head lettuce a few months in advance of the biggest salad day of the year in the United States: Mother\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important we nail the harvest on that one,\u201d said Taylor.<\/p>\n

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Taylor Farms is known for being an early adopter of technologies such as computer vision, cloud computing, and robotics in the eld, especially in its move toward automated harvesting.<\/p>\n

Self-driving food distribution<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Elsewhere in the industry, with the buzz of self-driving vehicles in the news, it\u2019s easy to imagine the corners- tone of food distribution\u2014trucking\u2014could eventually become obsolete.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a wonderful thing,\u201d said Steve Geraci, director of fleet operations at Certified Freight Logistics<\/a>, a company that provides produce distribution for Costco in Santa Maria on the central Californian coast.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, not only would driverless vehicles increase efficiency; they would also address labor shortages. \u201cRecruiting drivers is such a nonstop issue for us because over-the-road trucking is a lifestyle and it\u2019s not for everybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Geraci points to governmental policy decisions which mean it could take years before this happens. However, there\u2019s a lot to be said for the advancements in the refrigeration units on Costco\u2019s trailers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a lot of computing power,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re constantly monitoring the engine, the temperature, moisture, and the inflow and ouflow of the air circulating in the box.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The information is then transmitted to the cloud. \u201cIt\u2019s something we didn\u2019t have five years ago,\u201d Geraci said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, the food supply chain starts well before seeds are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":16364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[324,958,12,96,935],"class_list":["post-16361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation-business","tag-chief-executive-officer","tag-delivery-chain","tag-food","tag-industry","tag-logistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16361"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16565,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16361\/revisions\/16565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}