Hexagon Agriculture and Fibria

With more than 970 thousand hectares of forest, the Brazilian Fibria is the world leader in production of eucalyptus cellulose. Today, the company has a production capacity of 5.3 million tons annually of cellulose, with factories located in Mato Grosso do Sul, Espirito Santo, São Paulo and Bahia.

Fibria has as its proposal the cultivation of forests with the highest indexes of technology and control, and one of these forestry challenges is the management of the use of the inputs.

How to improve the monitoring of the application of inputs?

The main obstacle relates to the application of the products. How do you guarantee the area where the application has been carried out? In what quantity? For which providers? What is the quality?

The Fibria management team are always in search of more precise responses. But the manual control of operations (quality, output and quantity) do not offer the same precision of that of an automatic process, as well as making forestry operations more expensive. In this way, it is necessary to make a detailed map of the circulation of these resources.

The solution: more control guaranteed by embedded technology in equipment and information management (SWS)

With the aim to find a solution to this demand, Hexagon Agriculture combined expertise and market knowledge to develop a technology capable of controlling the application of inputs. The answers to the questions above are to be provided by an electronic system, which, embedded in the machines and fertilizer tractors, monitored the operation of Fibria.

In addition to this, Fibria started to use the main differential developed by Hexagon Agriculture: an SWS advanced system of information management. Thanks to it, in addition to accompanying and monitoring the input, the company was able to improve the control of the application quality, since the SWS minimizes the heterogeneity of the dosages applied and, consequently, contributes to the development of a more homogeneous forest and to a higher final productivity of wood.

The system also improved the ordering/closing process of Service Orders, since it started to provide information about the area applied, the total input used, which equipment/operators performed the activity etc. for subsequent payment of inputs and third parties. Finally, the solution builds a data history for subsequent queries on the new schedules, with actual transaction data.

Empathy and cutting edge technology to expand partnership

All of this was carried out with support from a local and specialized technical team. At various different times, Hexagon Agriculture professionals detected Fibria's demands and developed even more complete solutions - such as the recent case of the control of pit markings designed to maintain standardization of plant spacing.

It was an unprecedented work which proved to be successful. The project ended up being extended to other units of the company, such as Mato Grosso do Sul and São Paulo. And the expansion was not just geographic: the technology came to be applied along the forestry chain. Control of herbicides, insecticides and other mechanized activities began to be contemplated.

"Total safety in the application of inputs"

Currently, Fibria has a comprehensive package of Hexagon Agriculture products for all mechanized activities. Even for the control of earthmoving machines - another old challenge faced by the company.

Rodrigo Zagonel, manager of Fibria Forestry, explains about the differential provided by the solutions: "All this work that has been developing since 2006 adds a lot of value to our business today. Fibria has safety in the application of the inputs and in the control of the equipment thanks to technology from Hexagon Agriculture", says the forestry engineer.

As the company's application of inputs is done through contracts with third parties, Zagonel says that the solutions allow them "to make the negotiations with these suppliers work better, reducing gaps and pointing out ways to make the operation more efficient." This brings benefits to everyone: "Today, we have managed to reduce operating costs, but without affecting the profitability of our partners," concludes Fibria's forestry manager.

Currently, the relationship between Hexagon Agriculture and Fibria is stronger than ever. The partnership was renewed until 2021, and several new products have been developed - including herbicide and subsoiling controls with depth regulation. This is synergy that enables the smart change in forestry.