New High-Tech Farm Equipment Is a Nightmare for Farmers

[Rupunzell]

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/new-high-tech-farm-equipment-nightmare-farmers/


Bernice

[mtdoc]

Interesting article. Thanks for the link!

Perfect example of how higher tech is not always better. Perhaps this is sacrilege to say on an EE forum but IMHO too often MCUs and high tech computerized systems seem to be the hammer looking for nails. The marketers have convinced us that anything without a lcd screen on it is not worthwhile.  I'm no farmer but it seems hard to imagine that any increased efficiencies these proprietary computer systems on farm equipment allow outweigh the cost, complexity and potential down time they create. I guess the market is coming to the same conclusion according to the article:

The cost and hassle of repairing modern tractors has soured a lot of farmers on computerized systems altogether. In a September issue of Farm Journal, farm auction expert Greg Peterson noted that demand for newer tractors was falling. Tellingly, the price of and demand for older tractors (without all the digital bells and whistles) has picked up. “As for the simplicity, you’ve all heard the chatter,” Machinery Pete wrote. “There’s an increasing number of farmers placing greater value on acquiring older simpler machines that don’t require a computer to fix.”

[pickle9000]

Big issue with the North American railways as well. The maintenance equipment can be highly computerized. The general rule is that if you can buy any non computerized equipment do it so you can maintain it in house. The difference with the railways is it's possible to change the way equipment is made by asking. Either you do it or they will go to the other manufacturer and "play let's make a deal".

[Marco]

I kinda doubt even a 10 year old combine wouldn't be highly automated.

Maybe developers are just getting worse? Or they're using higher maintenance fee to make extra profits.

[pickle9000]

Combines are like the Roomba of the field, some amazing capabilities. That means productivity, so automation in that case is well worth it.

[mtdoc]

Good point about combines i suppose. I loves my Roomba!

But tractors?

[pickle9000]

Tractors should allow for manual override (as it should most be for most simple functions). Having a sensor on a hitch or latch is fine but why shut down the whole unit when it fails. It's not that the manufacturers are unaware of the issue. It's big business and it seems to be part of the plan.

[T3sl4co1l]

Analogy; instead of plowing fields, inspecting waveforms.  There's only so much value that can be added to new products, if the only purpose you have is looking at waves!  So, vintage oscilloscopes retain a modest market value, even when super fancy new ones are available relatively cheaply.

I can't imagine what a tractor or combine needs, other than the complete elimination of the driver altogether (full automation).  Until that day comes (maybe it's already here?), I shouldn't see why the good old ones need to be any different?

Tim

[pickle9000]

Still needs the driver for safety.

This is a quote from the vid:

Preparing seedbed for sugerbeet using a John Deere 8230 with in frontlink a 6 meter Steketee Combirol and at the back a Lemken Kompaktor. The tractor is equipped with JD's iTEC Pro ( Intelligent Total Equipment Control ) that will make it steer itself through headland turns as well as controlling the implement automatically.

[Mechanical Menace]

It seems the problem here is the equipment is designed for what is now the norm, hundreds to thousands of acre operations and not the dying "family farm" types.

[Galenbo]

Reminds me of the fact that in the 90ies, outside multinationals, pure-electrical forklifts were preferred over electronic ones.
Didn't have brake regeneration, smoothest speed proportionality, height indication, servo, and had less mileage with a full battery.
But the owner or his family could debug it, fix it, and do the work.


I see one of the really usefull possibilities of google glass here.

(my definition of technician is someone who understands datalogging, can protocol, welding, power factor, lathe, sensor signal conditioning, can change a waterpump, a 7805 and a drive belt)

Such technicians go to their customer that is located 10 km away, put on their google glass with a direct link to the offices of the manufacturer.
There, a specialised guy leads the local generalist in the debugging process, once the problem found the technician gets some extra info and documents. Both bypass, temporary repair can be done. Definitive repair can be done immediately or afterwards if extra parts are needed.

I was often on both sides of that story.
-As a specialist who wished I had seen some images of the problem on the machine, so I could have taken extra parts or tools to the site.
-As a specialist that drives 2x2 hours to then see all that is needed is an ass-simple repair in 30 seconds. I could have showed 'anyone' how to do that.
-As a generalist that has to repair something immediately, wishing I could pay for 5 minutes of the time of a specialist.
-As a generalist that wants a cheap-fast-guide of a specialist, to know to repair or recycle. Do you guess is it the 3000-dollar pump or a 30-dollar sensor?

It would decrease the cost, increase machine productivity, increase specialist productivity, decrease unnecessary transport.

[Whales]

I was once got talking to a guard on a metropolitan Sydney train.  We were stuck for a while as the train in the next station wasn't satisfied about something and refused to release its brakes.

Apparently the trains run DOS and Windows for certain tasks, depending on their age.  It would be interesting to find out for exactly what -- I'm imagining a swathe of trains failing when Microsoft starts recommending (pushing?) free updates to Windows 10. 

[SL4P]

It seems the problem here is the equipment is designed for what is now the norm, hundreds to thousands of acre operations and not the dying "family farm" types.

The problem here is the technology is designed to help the shareholders and customers, not the farmer.  He still works as long and hard, to sell more product at a lower price - to remain competitive.

First world.

[Mechanical Menace]

It seems the problem here is the equipment is designed for what is now the norm, hundreds to thousands of acre operations and not the dying "family farm" types.

The problem here is the technology is designed to help the shareholders and customers, not the farmer.

The farmer is the customer in this case, but a niche one. If I was one of these agricultural machinery manufacturers who am I going to design my products for, the customers who buy 90%+ of what I sell and buy more every year or those who are living in the past fighting a battle they have no chance of winning and maybe buy a machine once every 10 years, generally used so I actually see none of their money?

[Galenbo]

In Europe, in about 1990, there was a law passed that every car had to offer the possibility to be diagnosed in a standard way.

The result was OBD.
Allthrough not free and not ideal, It gave the possibility to diagnose a car with a standard tool, and every manufacturer gave his data, updates and info.
Not working for power windows or night heating, but at least the car could be made running again.

This should be mandatory in every field of mass production.

[Galenbo]

... who am I going to design my products for, the customers who buy 90%+ of what I sell and buy more every year or those who are living in the past fighting a battle they have no chance of winning and maybe buy a machine once every 10 years, generally used so I actually see none of their money?

The same goes on here.

Multinationalisation and mass structures are the chosen way by the oligarchs, ignorants, hyperconsumers and takers, that make up more then 50% these days.
Family businesses have to shut down, no more middle class.

Many ways are exploited to force this, going from build permission, exploit permissions, traffic regulations, variable tax rate, selective subsidies, law spaghetti, and also: forced machine specs. A set of machine regulations make them hugely more complex, much more expensive, and more efficient, but here it comes: Only when there's no downtime. All written with the hand of the big ones.

[tautech]

Hmmm.
Similar articles to this have been in NZ farming mags for 5 yrs or more.

The tractor story is disingenious.
Modern machinery is sooooo much more efficient than that available 20+ years ago.
That described lost 2 days waiting for service and/or parts is a small price to pay for the benefits of technology.
Frustrating as any breakdown can be, I'd guess it was written by older person that has yet to fully embrace the benefits of modern gear.

Yarning very recently to my ex local Ag contractor(I'm not actively farming now), he described how his Fendt 716 had neary 21K hours on the clock. Brakes and injector job the only major repairs to date.
Had a service rep to it a few years back to fix a battle between the onboard CPU and the big baler CPU and he had to get his diary out to x refence the work he had done against the onboard fault codes logged. Couple of  's...fixed.
Sir, shall we check for latest engine FW?
Connect phone to laptop, download and install FW.......
10 % fuel saving
That saved $500 per week....1st week technician's fee recovered. That was years ago.

Then you have a local elderly (80+)dairy farmer, I have known all my life, has just installed 3 robotic milking machines for his sharemilkers 250 cows.....1 labour unit saved.
Cows now milk when it suits them, 365, 24/7.


Hell my dad had one of the first tractors in the district, all his life he embraced advancement, for increased production, time saved, body saved, better income and a better way of life.

Look forward or be left behind.

[nctnico]

Hmmm.
Similar articles to this have been in NZ farming mags for 5 yrs or more.

The tractor story is disingenious.
Modern machinery is sooooo much more efficient than that available 20+ years ago.
That described lost 2 days waiting for service and/or parts is a small price to pay for the benefits of technology.
Frustrating as any breakdown can be, I'd guess it was written by older person that has yet to fully embrace the benefits of modern gear.

Or by somone who thinks the ECU has all the answers and has no clue on how to measure on an electrical system. I'd look for the (mechanical) reason why the sensor mentioned in the article breaks every time. Better fix that than trying to defeat it. So far I have dealt with 2 problems on my cars in which the ECU produced an error code which had nothing to do with the actual fault. It took good old fashioned fault finding to get to the real problem.

[G7PSK]

All the big farms around here lease the equipment, if the tractor stops working it's down to the lease company to fix, usual thing is another unit is brought in and the broken one removed for repair also some diagnostics are done over the net.

[retrolefty]

Many ways are exploited to force this, going from build permission, exploit permissions, traffic regulations, variable tax rate, selective subsidies, law spaghetti, and also: forced machine specs. A set of machine regulations make them hugely more complex, much more expensive, and more efficient, but here it comes: Only when there's no downtime. All written with the hand of the big ones.

 I worked as a field service engineer in the 70s for a couple of mini-computer companies. This was the time when a small or medium sized company for the first time could actually own a system to automate some business function that saved costs over their prior method. They didn't even have to have the system run 24/7 to have it save (make) money for them, most were day shift only operations, unlike the large mainframe customers. Of course with small systems there was still lots of stuff that could and would break down. Line printers, 1/2" tape drives, disk drives the size of pizza ovens. The customers were simply unable to do their own troubleshooting/repair activities, even customers of hi-tech companies. And of course down time is a business 'crisis'. There had to be a means where this issue could be addressed for a business environment.

 What the mini-computer industry offered was prepaid yearly renewed service contracts with a 4 hour guarantied response time and all parts and labor covered. A typical sized system may have a service contract cost of $1,200/month.  We also offered non-contract billable service but the hourly rate, travel time charge, parts costs made that a very risk business decision as such requests were handled only after all contract service first (no specified response time offered).

 So for business customers (like farmers!) it simply has to be decided if the capital costs of the equipment/system plus cost of operation and on site service contracts still makes the customer more money then his existing or prior not so hi-tech equipment or method. This should not be a foreign concept for farmers as most can't even predict how profitable his crop is going to be year to year and hedges via commodities investments to limit possible losses against some limit on maximum profits.

 As far as the manufacture 'opening up' their system to customers so as to be more self sufficient, it just is not going to happen. Even beyond copyright and other IP issues the fact that such support systems most likely are responsible for all/many of the safety interlocks functions the company lawyers would stomp their feet on aiding in anyway letting their costumers have ability to change/bypass/disable/modify any firmware controlled functions, the legal liabilities just would not allow such access.

 It won't be too many more years where the automotive industry will 'weld the hood shut', it's a goal that has been driven by liabilities laws.

 

[pickle9000]

Service contracts are commonplace with farmers, but with tight margins it's difficult to keep on track with a model like this unless you are a massive corporation. There is also the issue of customization. Farming covers a wide variety of fields and product. A beef farm is substantially different from a pork farm, canola farm and so on, not to mention location. Customization of gear is common and necessary to remain profitable. The number of implements a tractor can pull and used is massive. Much of the gear needs to be operated from the cab and can be very complex.

[Zero999]

Even though the advantages of modern technology are obvious, I can see why it's frustrating for the farmers. Copyright law was never designed to be abused like this. The government should step in.

[retrolefty]

Even though the advantages of modern technology are obvious, I can see why it's frustrating for the farmers. Copyright law was never designed to be abused like this. The government should step in.

 Not going to happen unless the government offers liability protection for the OEMs and that is just not going to happen. One needs to live in the world as it is, not as one might like it to be.

[pickle9000]

As machines show up on the second hand market, I'm sure things will be figured out. For the highly automated gear like combines it will be very difficult to do. For things like tractors I expect and have seen some tricks played on the sensors to keep them in service.

You also see basic heavy equipment on the farm, those have little automation and are eating into the tractors traditional role. Competition is good so that may be a real problem solver.

If the one farm eqiupment manufacturer slips up and offers a bypass/hobble feature many farmers will buy that gear. If that happens then everyone else will quickly do the same to keep market share.   

[AG6QR]

Even though the advantages of modern technology are obvious, I can see why it's frustrating for the farmers. Copyright law was never designed to be abused like this. The government should step in.

Perhaps you mean "the government should step out".

Copyright law's only force is through the fact that it gives copyright owners the right to make use of the government court systems to obtain and enforce judgments against violators.  If the government steps out, there is effectively no more copyright.  The government is the entity that passed the DMCA, which extends copyright.  Furthermore, the government, by passing DMCA, criminalized attempts to circumvent DRM software, whether or not the circumvention of DRM software results in a copyright violation.