Estate Canepro

• CanePro is a multi-user application designed specifically for the requirements of large commercial sugar estates.
• CanePro provides an integrated solution for managing fields, estimates, irrigation, employees, vehicles and materials.
• CanePro consolidates all your data into a single database with controlled access for all users.
• CanePro affords improved insight and decision making with its easy-to-use graphical reporting interface.
• CanePro enables middle management to become accountable for decisions by allocating responsibilities to specific tasks.

Resource Planning

CanePro's Resource Planner generates a complete resource budget for a season. This budget is constructed from a series of tasks to be performed on each field. A task consists of an activity (to enable activity-based costing) performed on a specific location on a particular date using a defined set of resources. These tasks can be used for operational planning purposes (hands-on management of operations) as well as for budgeting. Operational plans ensure the correct planning of operations (timing and resources) as well as the execution of that plan. Operational plans increase management accountability and control at all levels in the organization. Tasks from various sources are integrated into a single consolidated plan. This allows greater effectiveness in planning critical activities and greater efficiency in planning other activities.

The main sources of tasks are:

• The 'Operational Planners'. These sub-systems plan the most critical operations (irrigation, weed control, fertilizing, ripening and so forth). Agronomic recommendations are incorporated to deliver maximum benefit.
• The Field Activity Templates. These are defined once and re-used from year to year. Production standards can be stored within the templates or in separate tables. Each year the most appropriate templates are chosen for each field. A key benefit is the speed with which a new budget can be generated.
• Individually entered tasks and resources.

These tasks can be viewed in a Gantt chart. The associated resource quantities are aggregated to generate a resource budget. This consists of physical quantities for each combination of a location, activity, resource and financial month. Excel pivot cubes allow this data to be analyzed at various levels. These can be saved to the database as standard reports, allowing users to customize the system to their needs.

A physical overheads planner allows certain resources to be planned at the monthly level instead of at the task level.

Various pivot cubes are provided to allow comparisons between:

• any pair of plans,
• any plan and the actual results,
• actual results for different financial years.

Actual quantities are captured into CanePro on a daily basis. Comparative data is thus available on a timely basis, enabling better monitoring and control of operations.

The Resource Planner is more than just a budget generator. It is a vital tool for improving planning and control at multiple levels within the organization.