Will Dunn
Ag-drive
Studford Farm, North Yorkshire
Sponsored by: Farmdeals
AGRICULTURAL contractor and farmer’s son from North Yorkshire Will Dunn has designed an all-in-one cloudbased app to introduce a management tool and improve efficiency in farm businesses. From the business Studford Agtech, established in July 2020, Ag-drive offers an entirely paperless system, giving users clear and precise instructions from field mapping to pre-start health and safety checks, timesheets and invoicing. All coding of the app was carried out by contracted app developer Thumbmunkeys, located in York, and it took six months of meetings via Microsoft Teams to scope out the wireframes, use cases and educate the developers on how it would work.
Development started in January 2021 and by May that year, it was used at home for a month before commercially launching in the June. Key features of the app include telematic job recording which sends jobs directly to the operator and allows jobs to be analysed from start to finish, and photographs, job instructions, product lists and job starting points can be added when scheduling work. The app ensures full traceability for the farmer as he can view the job as it is happening, while both efficiency and cashflow are improved through more accurate timesheets. It uses cloud-based storage between the mobile app and web portal to provide a paperless farm diary/timesheet. All jobs use the GPS signal given off by the phone, with the added advantage of it working offline, yet still recording.
The product is marketed through all social media platforms, farming publications and zoom webinars, as well as exhibiting at shows such as LAMMA, Scotgrass and Midlands Machinery Show.
In the future, it is hoped more features can be added, such as machine maintenance, machine integrations, additional accounts packages, while also developing an agronomist account to provide an all-in-one app.