Creating Efficiencies on the Farm with Remote Level Monitoring

Thykeson Farms, Inc

Thykeson Farms grows a variety of agriculture including corn, soy, and wheat. They farm over 8,000 acres across two plots of land. While they work long days to feed America, a constant supply of diesel fuel is necessary in order to run their equipment.

Applications: Fuel Delivery and Inventory Management

Market: Agriculture

Challenge
Thykeson Farms is challenged with reducing the costs of their operations while still maintaining safe and consistent performance. Like most farms, Thykeson Farms monitored their diesel inventory locally by making routine trips to and from each plot to check the diesel tank levels by viewing the traditional float gauges. The major concerns are reducing unnecessary travel, improving reliability of the operation, and knowing what is happening at the site when no one is present.
Physically traveling to the individual tanks can be tedious, especially during busy days. With harvest season approaching, a consistent inventory of diesel fuel is vital to having an efficient harvest. When agriculturalists are rushed due to weather patterns, the inventory checks may be missed or overlooked.

“We are not always at the South farm to check the diesel inventory. It is difficult to keep a constant supply of diesel in all the tanks, especially during harvest season”, said Greg Thykeson.

Solution
In May of 2022, Thykeson Farms installed the TankScan cellular tank monitoring system at three diesel tank locations in Eastern North Dakota. The remote monitoring system leverages existing wireless cellular infrastructure and a cloud software application to eliminate large startup and setup costs associated with typical monitoring systems. The install requires screwing the monitor into a 2” port on the top of the tank and plugging in the battery. The cloud application is set up remotely and offers unlimited users, historical trending, and email/text notifications. Unlike most tank level monitors, TankScan works with Razor Tracking, making it easy to see both fleet and tank data in one application.

The tank levels are viewed from the field operator’s cell phone or from a PC at a remote office. The user is provided with accurate readings to devices and applications he already uses and understands.

Results
Thykeson Farms has realized numerous benefits from remote level monitoring, including:
• Reduced labor associated with trips to the field locations
• Improved reliability of their field operations with remote tank level visibility
• Improved confidence and reduced environmental risk with automated notifications
• Improved safety and environmental impact by the ability to detect tank leaks remotely

“TankScan improved our knowledge about field operations. We noticed that a tank was losing fuel rapidly and it turns out that it had leak”, said Greg.

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