The dike must be cut at the right time and when the weather is favorable and the nutritional values are high. If the mower stops, the rest of the mowing chain will soon stop. If the dike is broken, round baling and wrapping, or the exact chopping and packing of flat silos, must work. Every hour is important to get the forage harvest in at the right time and with good nutritional value.
If all machines have received the correct maintenance done before the season, the number of downtimes is reduced, and there will be fewer maintenance activities to keep in order before the harvest has started. For each machine, there are a number of maintenance activities to keep track of. Everything from oil changes to lubrication and adjustments. To get the right maintenance done, a maintenance plan is needed for each machine. Of course, you can try to follow what is written in the manual, or build some kind of remember tool in Excel, but it quickly becomes difficult to keep track of everything that needs to be done and whether it has been done. If you have about 20 machines that on average have 5 different maintenance intervals and there are 5-10 activities per interval, there will be 500-1000 moments to keep track of.
It may seem like a lot of work to maintain the machines properly, but it is likely the best paid time. With today's feed prices, it is estimated that each day's delay in the fodder harvest, with decreasing nutritional value, entails a loss of approx. 14-20 öre per kg ts. A round baler that produces about 20-25 bales per hour has a capacity of about 60 tons per day when the harvest conditions are good. One day's downtime results in a reduction in the value of feed quality by approx. SEK 8,400 - 12,000 per day if the feed state needs to compensate for poorer roughage quality. If it is a self-propelled precision hack, the loss can reach SEK 30,000 - 40,000 per day!
Farmers First Maintenance provides the opportunity to create a simple and user-friendly maintenance plan for each machine. Correct activities at each interval. Each activity is simply described with a photo from the manual or on the machine. The work of setting up a good maintenance plan can be saved already at the first maintenance occasions. Once the maintenance plan is made, the system keeps track of when it's time to do which activities, and the instructions are easily accessible on the phone. What's done is crossed off, and what's really important is photographed as proof that it's done. It becomes possible to get the maintenance done, and a lot of money can be saved.
There are examples of maintenance plans here on our website. Take a look and be convinced that you too should get started.