The digital revolution is making inroads in the countryside and animal agriculture is going hi-tech. MLIT Solutions with ‘PoultryMon’ is leading the race. They deliver end-to-end IoT Solutions for manufacturing, agriculture, and poultry farming, to help them unlock new levels of productivity and potential. This real-time remote monitoring solution for poultry already has clients in industry behemoths like Suguna Foods.
MLIT-Sol Pvt Ltd was established by Srinivas Chindam in 2016. He has over 25+ yrs of experience in Software, Business Intelligence and Analytics.
Srinivas comes as a Solution Architect with vast knowledge having worked in more than 10 countries for companies like GE, SONY, Texas Instruments, ANZ Bank, Wipro, Sodexo, Netapp, Xerox etc. and helms the Overal strategy, Technology IoT and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology enhancements and new product line developments for PoultryMon at MLIT.
PoultryMon – smart automation at the hatchery level by MLIT could be a game changer in increasing productivity and quality.
We learn in-depth about PoultryMon in an interview with the Founder CEO of MLIT solutions Mr. Srinivas Chindam.
From manufacturing to poultry is a very diverse switch. How did you come to this field and where did the idea originate?
We started our foray into IoT in manufacturing Industry as we have a family business of manufacturing Aerospace fasteners. Entry into Poultry sector was rather coincidental. Later while working with a client who also happened to have a hatchery had to suffer a complete hatch loss due to operator negligence during night time we realized the importance of monitoring live stock in real time for deviations and maintain conditions throughout the hatch cycle.
The idea to have a smart management system in place where the manager can have seamless visibility of the process in real time within his mobile and also have alert mechanisms to track inconsistencies in the system to contain hatch loss was born.
How did you go about planning and developing it?
Extensive research on field by our team to understand the functionality across from farm to hatchery and the breeding cycle enabled us to identify the pain areas of labor intensive and technology primitive poultry industry. To bring in connectivity and develop advanced technology which is agnostic to existing machinery in the farm was challenging. We succeeded in demonstrating the value of adding sensors to make a hatchery smarter for sensing and monitoring by applying niche technologies like Internet of Things. We are the first company from India to implement IoT technology at farm level.
Idea turning into reality, how long did it take?
It took us little more than a year to bring it to the market after number of trials and testing. The product patent is still pending.
What were your challenges in this journey?
As IoT is still in its nascent stage and evolving at a rapid pace, it was challenging for us to find expert resources in development of our hardware and also local production partner. After little iteration of design and the functionality we have standardized our offering now. The potential of disrupting Poultry sector and introducing innovation which can benefit the end farmer and can usher in improvements both in productivity and quality is what kept us going even though we are boot strapped.
What exactly is the PoultryMon and what are its features?
PoultryMon is a real time remote monitoring solution for Poultry hatcheries and farms for efficient management and control of the critical conditions throughout the hatch cycle improving yield and quality. Making hatcheries and farms smarter through real time anomaly detection and predictive maintenance for increased efficiency and optimizing productivity.
What is the technology involved in developing this system?
We have used advanced and patented technologies of wireless connectivity of Internet of things (IoT), Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data etc. platform for huge volumes of data for easy and real time traceability of Hatchery, Farms, Cold Rooms data.
In what ways does this system benefit the breeder or the farmer?
By continuously monitoring the temp and humidity in real time the hatchability and quality of chicks can be improved. Continuous monitoring leads to early detection of defects and remedial measures can decrease the hatch duration, the cost of operations. Timely actions result in better profitability. Data is automatically logged so the operator can be engaged with other hatching works PoultryMon helps in reducing production costs and increasing revenue.
With a largely semiskilled workforce is it user friendly?
Our mobile and web apps are very user friendly. Plug and play model allows users to Install easily.
Can the benefits be extended from the hatchery to the farm level?
Yes, the chicks produced by maintaining optimal parameters throughout the cycle of incubation are of much higher quality and less prone to abnormalities.
Poultry is synonymous with small towns and rural areas. How does PoultryMon impact them?
PoultryMon has the potential to bring in paradigm shift in this Industry by drastically improving productivity and sustainability; it can be used to optimize the quality of meat while reducing the possibilities of fraud through enhancing traceability. The objective is to deliver technologies that fit the entire value chain from farm to fork reinforcing and empowering farmers with yield improvement thereby increasing revenues and strengthening them for the challenges ahead by having better visibility and control.
How compatible is PoultryMon with the wide range of Incubators available in the market?
Our system is compatible with all the existing and new traditional Incubators irrespective of the maker.
Promoting a new technology is a challenge. How did you go about it?
Creating awareness about the technology, accepting and implementing into livestock environment as it is extremely sensitive to make the production more progressive is possible through educating the customers about benefits of how it can effectively increase the efficiency and quality of bird or egg.
We are promoting it through various channels like interacting directly with our customers and farmers on field, participating in workshops, exhibiting at International Poultry Expo. We are in incubated in T-hub through T Hub and we are also taking help from Govt of Telangana for promotions in various Agri programs.
What kind of market potential do you see for your product?
We are providing solutions to more than 50+ hatcheries. We are trying to expand our product to serve more business verticals and planning to launch better version of this in 2023.
PoultryMon is a technology based product with immense scope in the futuristic world of poultry. What are your plans to make it go global?
We are preparing to expand our services internationally from 2023. We are planning to serve overseas mainly in under developing countries and wanted to help them grow in sectors like poultry.
