In April 2019, Greenstone Systems held a product hackathon. What’s a hackathon, you ask? In this instance, a hackathon is where a group of people come together for a specified period of time for intense, creative problem solving.
Why did Greenstone hold such an event? Because dedicated time to problem solve and brainstorm new solutions is necessary in the technology industry, especially when it’s tied to an entity as fast-paced and ever-changing as the U.S. grain industry.
Team Greenstone was challenged with finding efficiency gaps and creating solutions that closed those gaps, along with supporting the primarily paperless agribusinesses of the future. The group was broken into three teams: Team Alpha was focused on pre-harvest operations, Team Beta was focused on post-harvest operations, and Team Gamma was focused on the potential of offering Greenstone’s core ERP solutions as cloud-based applications.
After a day and a half of intense brainstorming and creating, the groups presented their solutions with a focus on delivery and execution. Here is a sneak peek of what Greenstone customers can expect in the future:
Team Alpha (Pre-Harvest Operations), designed a prototype for iDash—a simple, easy-to-read dashboard for Greenstone customers to actively monitor inventory positions in real-time. This solution would help management make better decisions regarding purchasing, pricing and forecasting, and save them the time and effort of running multiple item reports within AGRIS.
Team Beta (Post-Harvest Operations), designed an E-Scale Ticket. This E-Scale Ticket would provide the ability to electronically attach documents (such as vehicle wash-out slips, bill of ladings, and previous tickets for that vehicle) to the related grain ticket in order to cut down on paper hunting and filing. The E-Scale Ticket (from the oneWeigh system) and all its related subdocuments would flow back into AGRIS and be available through MyGrower as well.
Additionally, Team Beta designed a concept for E-Weight, a cloud translator for destination weights and grades. The cloud translator would electronically share destination weight and grade certificates with origination sites, as well as push direct shipment ticket information from the receiver to the originator.
Team Gamma, mapped the route for Greenstone customers to be hosted on The Cloud. The idea behind this movement is to help customers simplify and reduce IT administration burden and risk. New customers are looking for a low footprint, sustainable agribusiness solution, while some existing customers are being held back from adopting new mobile technologies because of their infrastructure bottlenecks.Cloud-based deployments of Greenstone’s powerful application offers both parties and simple and scalable solution.
This is only a glimpse of what is to come for Greenstone customers. Stay tuned!