Viborg/Gothenburg
HedeDanmark wanted to get its entire work process digitized. CFHarvest turned out to be the solution for the missing link; the planning and management of the work in the forest. Rasmus Willumsen here tells the story about HedeDanmark’s journey towards a completely digitized work process in the forest.
HedeDanmark is Denmark’s largest private forestry company. Everything from forest seeds to the management of small and large forests owned by private individuals, the state and municipalities is managed within the company. HedeDanmark have 1,000 employees and a turnover of DKK 1.75 billion.
Digitize work in the forest
A couple of years ago, the company wanted to solve the only part of the work process that was not yet digitized, the part of controlling and planning the execution of the work in the forest.
– When there is no central system, people invent their own way of getting it done. We had a lot of manual work, and as soon as there was a change or update on an assignment, it involved even more manual work, says Rasmus Willumsen, business developer at HedeDanmark.
– We thought we should be able to do this better, both for us as a business, for our employees and for our clients.
HedeDanmark analysed what the company needed and demanded of a new system. People working in the practical operation had to specify what the system would be able to do, but they were also allowed to make requests in addition to that.
CFHarvest combined with existing systems
HedeDanmark looked around Europe for solutions and at a trade fair in Germany, Rasmus Willumsen met Trimble. With the help of ForestX, Trimble Forestry’s agent in the Nordic market, they found out that it was CFHarvest that best met HedeDanmark’s requirements.
– We got great help from ForestX, they know both IT and forestry, not all IT companies do.
– Another advantage of CFHarvest was that we could combine it with our existing systems before and after in the process. It is a flexible system. In terms of operations, it has provided a completely digital flow. For the individual in the company, it has provided a much better approach and a calmer way of working, says Rasmus Willumsen.
It was also important in the decision for HedeDanmark to find a large company with well-known systems and good resources to update. The fact that ForestX existed as an industry-savvy partner for Trimble Forestry was also a security for the relatively small Danish company.
Now that the workflow is well established with CFHarvest, Rasmus Willumsen and colleagues see clear advantages:
– In the office we’ve got a good overview. We can see what we have coming up and you get an understanding of what the colleagues workload looks like. We also receive continuous feedback on the status of the work; Has it started? Is it finished? What was done?
– Employees in the forest can see where they will work, their own position on the map and where the boundaries go for felling. They can see what tasks are planned for each one of them.
350 users in HedeDanmark
Another strength Rasmus Willumsen sees in CFHarvest is that HedeDenmark is one of many customers in a system that is used all over the world. With the large number of other users, HedeDanmark can benefit from others’ ideas and suggestions for development.
At present, CFHarvest is used by about 350 people in the work of HedeDanmark, both employees and contractors.
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