Collaborative vintage planning

When CSIRO started the research that has resulted in the maturation modeling that underpins the Harvest-Plan service, one of the driving motivations was to foster what they called an “Adaptive Supply Network”, which in SMART Conference presentation (PDF) they defined as

“a network of decision makers, each with different goals, who collaborate and share rich information in order to arrive at decisions that mutually affect them. ‘Adaptive’ relates to a capacity to react creatively to situations in a fast and flexible way”

Those research results describe the complexity inherent in organising a grape harvest where most, if not all, the participants are independent of each other, but interdependent on the timely exchange of information. The key piece of information required for effective planning of grape intake is the aggregated understanding of when grapes will reach the desired ripeness (maturity) – the harvest plan.   The other key part of an adaptive supply network is the sharing of information – the collaboration element. Part of our vision is to facilitate the sharing of the harvest plan with other interested parties such as harvesters, transport operators and contract processors, and this is a key feature on the enterprise subscription roadmap.

Of course, the flow of information is not unidirectional – information about harvester availability, chemical spray plans (from growers) and winery capacities (from contract processors) can all be incorporated into the harvest plan – as long as everyone involved is part of the conversation based on the plan. When we get there, that will be collaborative harvest planning.