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Revolutionizing Agriculture: Navigating Automation and Autonomy in Response to Labor Shortages
Sam Freesmeyer, a seasoned professional in the agricultural equipment industry, discusses the significant shift towards automation and autonomy in farming.
With over 40 years of experience, he observes that the increasing reliance on technology is not just a result of its advancement but is primarily driven by a shortage of skilled labor. Both rural farm operators and machinery industries are grappling with the challenges of finding qualified personnel, prompting a need for greater efficiency and effectiveness through automation. Freesmeyer emphasizes the importance of leveraging digital tools like the digital thread, connecting design, purchasing, and manufacturing processes to achieve more with fewer resources in response to the evolving landscape of agricultural labor.
Transcript
Leah Archibald: You have a long career in industrial agriculture, which has been changing over the past several years.
Sam Freesmeyer: It has, Leah. I’ve been in the agricultural equipment industry for 40 plus years. And the last year as a consultant, I’ve really had a chance to look across the industry and see a lot of changes outside of the company that I used to really focus within. And as I look at this, I’m seeing a huge movement towards automation and autonomy, the ability for machines to operate without a human operator. And the thing that’s really tying a lot of that together is not the presence of the technology, ’cause we’ve had the technology for a very long time, it’s getting better, but it’s being driven by a shortage of skilled labor.
Sam Freesmeyer: We see that on the farms. Our rural farm operators are struggling to find skilled labor to operate. And we see that in the machinery industry as well, because many of our factories are located in rural America. And so, the same labor shortage that’s affecting our customers is affecting our ability to hire engineers, to hire purchasing people, to hire manufacturing people, to actually produce the equipment. And so, there’s a big focus on, how do we get more efficient? How do we get more effective? How do we do more with less?
Leah Archibald: And how do we do that? How does manufacturing have to change the machines themselves?
Sam Freesmeyer: Well, it’s automation and autonomy within the factories as well, but that requires information. A lot of the work of designing this equipment is done by engineers, obviously, but the costing part of that work is a lot more difficult. We need better tools. We’ve used spreadsheets, we’ve used calculators, we’ve used slide rules, if you go back far enough. That’s not gonna work. We can’t afford the number of people doing that kind of work that we used to have. And so, we’re looking to automate, we’re looking for tools in place. This is where the digital thread comes in. We start talking about a CAD model, that’s a substantial amount of digital information already, but if we can now take that design content and move it into purchasing and into manufacturing, and start a two-way dialogue, we can get a lot more done with fewer people.
