July 16, 2024
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5 min
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From the heart of Turkey, MAY Seed exports seeds to more than 45 countries under the MAY license and brand.
With a history dating back to 1978, the seed company commits to Research and Development by investing 9% of their annual revenue in R&D activities.
Their research focuses on varieties of 3 major crops: Sunflower, Corn, Cotton In addition, they also conduct some trials in green bean, processing tomato and sweet corn.
Before 2017, the plant breeders didn’t use the full potential of their data. They spent much time and energy on their computer but could not gather the information or make reports easily. The teams felt frustration.
Geoff Llyod Thomas, R&D director: “We wanted to have a unique system so that every breeder in the company speaks the same language. For instance, we used to have different types of graphs in reports, and we needed to put an effort to understand the results from different teams. “
Plant breeding information was primarily stored in Excel files, which were kept on personal computers and shared via email. According to Asli Keçeli, R&D Data System Manager, breeders were using two different databases, but not all information was centralized. This decentralized approach made it difficult to keep track of materials over the years. Multi-year reports had to be done by hand, and analyzing Excel files that frequently changed over time was a struggle.
Collaboration within the R&D department was complex and time-consuming. Asli Keçeli explained that much time was spent collaborating with the laboratory and keeping track of seed lots. The team relied on emails to exchange Excel files, but over time, the accumulation of files became inefficient. It was challenging to follow the progress of a genotype from plant breeding to production research, seed production, and eventually to sales and marketing.
Configuring tools and responding to the needs of breeders was complex for an administrator, as there wasn’t a dedicated person in charge of the R&D data management system. Asli Keçeli noted that previous attempts to switch to a unified system had failed because not all breeders were satisfied with the system, and some groups did not join the project.
In 2017 the plant breeding department of MAY Seed started the project with Doriane software with 6 users. Now 20 people are using the software: breeders, engineers, technicians, lab personnel, and an auditor who checks the system integrity. It is a success, mainly for 4 reasons:
Most teams work on different locations, and they don’t speak much with each other. They need a communicator to help them all speak the same language. The collaborative system enables them to do their daily tasks and respect the standards of this language.
Now they use similar formats for different traits, and this is a great benefit for the R&D department. Even across different crops, different areas, and over years, all the teams use unified traits.
With unified data formats, every breeder now presents their analysis in the same way. All information is kept in a single system, making it easy to access for everyone, supervise, and conduct internal audits, explained Asli Keçeli.
Geoff Llyod Thomas, R&D director: “My vision is also to encourage collaboration. We organize meetings including all the groups to decide the format of scoring for every group of traits. For example, we are going to score diseases from 1 to 5. Yield will be decimal and after 2 digits, etc. Now the system sets a standard for all the groups, with limits and alerts so that all the teams input similar data. This is great for data validation.”
Using a unique system set for all crops, enables the administrator to have an overview on the work of the plant breeders. When some group asks for an adjustment, the admin knows when it can benefit to another group and improve the configuration for everyone.
Every new person integrated in the team gets a personal training. The training usually lasts 3 days and focuses only on the features the person will use.
Flexibility of the software is one of the major reasons why MAY Seed has chosen Doriane. It gives the freedom to the administrator to configure the system and respond to the needs of the different groups of the R&D department.
In most cases, the answers are already in the system, requiring only minor configurations. However, there are instances where something new needs to be introduced. Asli Keçeli appreciates having the freedom to find ways to implement these changes within the system. The team always strives to fully utilize the system’s features and find solutions within the program. Ultimately, the system can be configured and adjusted to meet the needs of everyone in the R&D department, ensuring that all users are generally quite satisfied with it.
At the start of the project, David, a consultant from Doriane, has trained the administrator and the first users. In addition, Rudy the Customer Success Manager, is available to discuss the evolution of the software. Doriane also organizes webinars and every two years they invite all clients to Nice to discover the new features.
Asli Keçeli appreciates the ease of obtaining fast and expert assistance, noting that it’s great to know help is readily available.
Asli Keçeli: “Breeders are not IT people. Usually, they don’t like using computers very much 😅. They don’t want to spend unnecessary time at their desk."
The system enables well-organized and well-planned field operations, allowing plant breeders to minimize office hours and spend more time in the fields.
Efficiency is a game-changer for user adoption; when the system works well, there is no frustration, and users are eager to use the program.
Another reason why MAY Seed has chosen RnDExperience over other plant breeding software is because it enables to implement other activities of the R&D department: Laboratory, field trials, seed production, production research, product development, sales and marketing.
They are able to put all their data within the same system. They share the same genotype information. They use the same seed lots, and they can keep track of their jobs. It is much easier to follow every step of a specific genotype.
Now, all data is accessible to everyone who needs it, with the administrator assigning specific rights to each user. This accessibility is considered quite valuable and beneficial.
For instance, the seed production testing group at MAY Seed, referred to as “pre-basic,” multiplies seeds for plant breeders and the seed production team. They also conduct testing for seed production, scoring diseases, observing various traits, and sharing results with the production team. Since they use the same system, their trial results are directly accessible to both the breeding and production groups, aiding in larger-scale production.
RnDExperience brings efficiency to the R&D department, and even to the sales department and top management.
Previously plant breeders used to do their planning in one system, then create their labels, and field reports in another place. They used to do it in Excel files, every year. Now they are using the system: They plan in the system and take the labels off right away. They take the field reports right away and then fill the data. They import it and get the analysis right away. In the end, instead of following many tedious steps, they can readily execute every step within the same platform with personalized adjustments.
Furthermore, several people can work on the same material, or the same field simultaneously. They can plan their trials at the same time and this saves time compared to an excel file you need to wait your colleague to finish to start working on the same data.
The system also accelerates decision-making and enables the teams to work efficiently: They spend less time and energy in front of their computer and focus more on their projects.
Even the management benefits from RnDExperience: They use many annual reports, monthly reports extracted directly from the system to track line development or to know what stock is at hand. They also have an overview of the progress of their teams in real time.
Asli Keçeli: “We are living in a data world now and with this system we make the most of it. If some problem happens in any steps of breeding, we have the tools to understand the cause right away."
This capability is crucial for boosting team efficiency, making quick decisions, and maintaining cost-effectiveness within the R&D department. Most importantly, Asli highlights that the system ensures valuable and trustworthy data is attached to the genotypes, which maximizes their genetic pool and is highly valuable for the company.
With this system, several years later, with just a couple clicks one can easily find all information about a specific line. He can make a report with seed amounts, test results, yield results, for one year or multi-year results side by side. This is a great improvement. It used to take at least a couple of hours.
With Doriane’s software, our R&D and Production Reaserch teams save time on reaching important information regarding genotypes: we can quickly produce well-documented genotype reports. in just a couple clicks we make multi-year report with seed amounts, test results, yield results. It used to take at least a couple of hours. They can say “Yes, we have tested this and that in these locations, here are the lab results and there are multi-year results. Watch these graphs that show the performances.
Having a unified system enables the auditor to check all the data. Once a year, this person makes sure that the data used by everybody is safe, and every operation is well tracked. He reports to the management who is assured that all the experiments, all the data, all the valuable information coming from the lab is in the system and safely stored.
The whole system follows a common logic, everything is structured with a stock of materials and a list of experiments. When a new user understands this logic, he can be pretty efficient and autonomous. When you know how to do an experiment in line protocol, you can guess how to do the same in SLE or hybrid production.
Asli Keçeli: “This logic model makes it pretty easy to understand and to be trained to new parts of the software. I have never heard any of our users complaining that it is too complex or hard to understand.”
Geoff Llyod Thomas, R&D director: “We believe the partnership with Doriane is a great asset for our R&D. Every year we deploy the system more and more and we will keep on adding new users in the future.”
Romain Royer
Marketing Manager
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