São Martinho Mill introduces INFLOR’s GISagri system

São Martinho Group is one of the largest sugar and ethanol producers in Brazil, with 3 mills in operation: São Martinho, which is located in the city of Pradópolis in the state of São Paulo (Ribeirão Preto region); Iracema, located in the city of Iracemápolis (Limeira region); and Boa Vista in Quirinópolis, 300 kilometers away from the city of Goiânia, in the state of Goiás, which is part of the Nova Fronteira Bioenergia (a joint venture created from the partnership between São Martinho Group and Petrobras Biocombustível).

Besides the 3 mills, São Martinho Group also owns a production unit of ribonucleic acid called Omtek, also located in the city of Iracemápolis. The group also holds 36.08% of Santa Cruz – Sugar and Alcohol, in the state of São Paulo.

Key challenges

São Martinho Group used to have most of its land surveys stored in CAD or shapefiles for each farm. This situation meant that the organization could not centralize or guarantee the accuracy of its information, due to the lack of topography and business validations.

Other important factors were the difficulty of integrating geographical information with operational ones, meaning it was not possible to easily view information from ERP Agricola in maps, as well as causing difficulty in information traceability between harvests.

Solution

INFLOR’s project with São Martinho was divided into 3 main phases:

• The creation of a centralized geographical base and database cleaning (GISagri Desktop)
• Geographical database connection with existing operation data in ERP Agricola (GISagri Connect)
• Information sharing with the whole company through map portals, map schedules in PDF and integration with BI data cubes (GISagri Maps).

1st Phase – GISagri Desktop

GISagri Desktop was installed in May 2013 and from this moment on, the database cleaning to normalize all farms of the group in a centralized geodatabase was started.

The product allowed São Martinho’s internal team to clean their data with a user-friendly, intuitive tool.

2nd phase – GISagri Connect

With part of its geodatabase already cleaned, the project entered the phase of building a connection between the geographical database and the alphanumeric data (operational data of ERP Agricola).

The GISagri Connect module was installed in December 2013 and allowed São Martinho to easily track operational information linked with spatial reference.

3rd Phase – GISagri Maps

The next phase to be initiated consisted of deploying GISagri Maps. This module allows São Martinho to share spatial information in a user-friendly and efficient way.

• Access to thematic maps via web, from computers or mobile devices such as tables, smartphones, etc.
• Configuration to set periodic sending of thematic maps in PDF format by email or to store them in the corporate network.
• Integration and detailing of alphanumeric data through BI data cubes.
• Restriction of shared information through security profiles.
• Searches, overlapping, and event records, among others.

What our client says about the project

“GISagri matched São Martinho Group’s needs, since a well-structured cartographic database is the foundation of better land use management.

Among the benefits already gained with a geodatabase structuration and the usage of GISagri are the reduction in time and dedicated effort to specialize the information and thematic maps; the guarantee of fast and random access to the geographical data integrated with the operational data; and the guarantee of data cleaning governance, with standardization, reliability and traceability.

We are very optimistic about the even greater results we can reach with our partnership with INFLOR, from cost reduction to the democratization of the information inside the group by using a corporate GIS.”

Rafael Peluco, Agricultural Quality at São Martinho Group