PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk, an oil palm plantation company owned by Astra International Group, enters the beginning of 2020 with optimism. The confidence to achieve the targets that have been set early this year is marked by the price of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) of palm oil that starts to writhe and crawl up.
“We also strengthen our efforts to capture the prospects and opportunities that are open to this industry by continuously innovating,” said President Director of PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk, Santosa. “That is why in 2020 Astra Agro raised the theme of Sustaining Innovations,” he continued while talking at the annual event titled “Talk to the CEO” in Bogor, February 18, 2020.
With this theme, according to him, improvement becomes a very important program in Astra Agro. Management wants to ensure operational excellence of the company so that productivity is increased.
Some improvements were made by utilizing the advancements and strengths of digital technology. So far, there have been three applications that have been implemented in an effort to improve effectiveness and efficiency in the process of caring, harvesting and processing.
“In the future, we will continue to explore new ideas and implement them to ensure operational excellence of the company” Santosa continued. According to him, this spirit is also a manifestation of PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk’s vision and mission that wants to make Astra Agro the most productive and innovative company in the world.
Astra agro continues to innovate for operational excellence of the company by utilizing advances and technological advantages 4.0. Astra Agro has developed several digital-based applications to simplify and improve company performance.
“In addition to the strengthening of the control function, we also aim to digitize Astra Agro’s operations so that analysis and decisions can be taken more quickly, precisely and accurately,” said President Director of PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk, Santosa.
The application, named MELLI (mill excellent indicator), for example, is very useful in supplying fast and accurate data on indicators in a palm oil mill. The data supply is very necessary considering the speed and accuracy of the data is very important for management to conduct analysis and decision making for any problems within the mill.
Likewise, the AMANDA, which is an acronym for Astra Agro Foreman Application. This digital based application is designed to answer the challenges of operational activities that are in line with Astra Agro standards.
There is also an application known as DINDA or daily indicator of Astra Agro. This application focuses on developing system models that support operational excellence concepts. The system created also facilitates management to develop work that is effective and efficient.
All of these applications are integrated through the Operation Center of Astra Agro (OCA), which is a master system developed with a real time information base. “With this system, feedback on the processes taking place in the field can be accelerated so that the execution would be much faster,” he continued.
