Does technology drive value or do people? I think this topic can be debated in many ways.
However, when reading this article on John Deere, seeing the amount of time, money, and effort that has been put into their autonomous 8R tractor. I have to wonder…
Where did all of the SME – Subject Matter Expert tractor drivers go? Being in the #automation space has taught me something 20+ years of IT could not. I learned that it’s not all about just people, processes, or tools. What does solve issues is a combination of the above, however, it has to be done with a different perspective.
For example:
Tractors, farm equipment, and large construction are all looking at Tesla and saying… “That’s a technology we can use to solve our problems”. However, unlike Tesla, these other companies are looking to remove the human. The question is, what would it look like if they didn’t?
What if… You could have an expert person, at the wheel, driving the fields, orchards, quarry, etc. What if this expert could do this remotely and take a follow-the-sun approach? Then what if I told you that this can be done now and by using Virtual Reality? Why not create driveable machines that humans still operate and handle all of the variables while still providing value? Using remote, or VR could provide value faster, be less costly, and less to maintain. Your insurance company may even like this idea better as well. You could even have onsite managers or farmers using augmented reality to interface or interact with these professional VR pilots to ensure safety, and drive efficiency around where and when items will be in specific locations.
If anything, smaller companies can certainly go the professional VR pilots route and compete without paying a higher price tag. Machine learning and training alone that will be needed to handle the ‘defined’ variables like region, climate, year, season, or any regulations specific to the sounding animal population. Could mostly be avoided by using humans to do what they do best, think!
It’s an idea. A different perspective, and maybe a potential win. Please note that I am not a farmer. I do know Automation and AI can be hard and have been known to fail. Maybe by finding a middle ground where humans still play a management role or are trained SMEs. We can see more technology realization from human-in-the-loop activities.
#technology #construction #people #money #safety #augmentedreality #ai #machinelearning #tesla #management
Notice: The views expressed above are my own. The views within any of my posts, or articles are not those of my employer or the employers of any contributing experts. this post? for regular insights.
