
GIANT BY NATURE
Agribusiness in Brazil has proven to be one of the economic segments with the greatest evolution and capacity to generate wealth, income and employment. It is a key sector for the country and for the world – a global benchmark and a source of pride for Brazilians.
Today, the production chain is responsible for more than half of exports and for about 26% of the Brazilian GDP.
The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic – which resulted in the stoppage of many activities – was not able to prevent the growth of this sector, which continued to generate jobs and bring in foreign exchange to the country.
Among the Agro sectors, bioenergy (24%), animal protein (15%) and grains and oils (11%) stand out with the highest number of companies.

Gustavo Tardin
Senior PartnerSTAUFEN.Táktica
More than 20 years of experience in Consulting with a focus on Operational Excellence;
He has applied Lean to reduce costs, improve delivery performance and quality in industries such as: Automotive, Equipment, Pharmaceuticals, Electronics, Beverages and Agribusiness, and in services such as Health, Engineering and Telecom;
Since 2013 has been combining his knowledge of excellence in processes with technology to implement high performance Operating Systems, especially in the Beverage industry and agribusiness.
– Door-to-door factory projects including all material and information flow, connection with suppliers and customers;
– Projects of efficiency increase in Supply Chain, both in transport optimization and in the implementation of S&OP;
– Participation in Lean global transformation that simultaneously involved countries such as Brazil, India, China, Canada, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland and Spain;
– The list of companies in which he worked includes: Bosch, Dow, Volvo, 3M, Ambev, Tigre, Citrosuco, Copersucar, Diageo, Poyry, among others.
Contatos: g.tardin@staufen.com.br
+55 (19) 98125 0086
some challenges of agribusiness in Brazil
Agribusiness in Brazil is advancing a lot in terms of productivity. However, there is still waste in processes that negatively impact higher production costs: agricultural inputs, labor, maintenance, fuel, transportation and the cost of land itself.
Climate change and inefficient transport logistics are two high-impact challenges that are complex, time-consuming and expensive to solve. However, there are other challenges which companies and producers can overcome.
Labor shortages have proven to be a challenge in many regions as they put upward pressure on wages. Combined with this, the legislation has imposed important restrictions, which require more employees to carry out the activities of the process.
In this scenario, factors such as equipment breakdowns, lack of inputs, planning failures or lack of guidance generate waiting and waste the capacity of the teams.
This capacity is also lost due to quality problems that generate rework, that is, the need to correct what was done before.
The increase in mechanization is one of the greatest levers of labor productivity, but this factor, in addition to requiring ever-increasing investments for the acquisition of equipment, also requires better trained employees, with higher wages and, sometimes, even scarcer ones.
In addition, the introduction of more complex machines with more technology also impacts maintenance costs. Not only do parts tend to be more expensive, but also maintenance, as it must be carried out by more capable teams and, eventually, at a higher cost than traditional teams.
Despite the great advances in technology, in many operations, the human factor still has a strong impact on equipment availability. Errors in operation and maintenance activities can result in breakages that could have been avoided.
Finally, the high level of unavailability requires a greater number of machines and operators, larger maintenance teams, greater use of parts and larger replacement stocks, which increases investments in machinery and production and maintenance costs.
Mechanization and automation are great allies of the quality of agricultural operations. Satellite-guided operations and variable application of inputs, based on sensors and databases, reduce the possibility of operational failures. This reduces, as a consequence, unnecessary costs with inputs and hours of rework, improving the productivity of the land, which has an increasing cost.
However, even in the most technologically advanced environments, much information required by autonomous systems is still collected and entered manually. This is especially due to the absence of an adequate telecommunication structure in the field, which leads to the need to implement adequate logistics for collecting information from on-board computers. Failures in these collections result in failures in the operation.
In less advanced environments, this becomes much more critical, as operational failures are much more frequent – and the perception of them is later.
These types of failure increase the costs of inputs, fuel, maintenance and labor, in addition to contributing to a decrease in production and company revenues.
The most common effects of planning failures are people, equipment and vehicles stopped – when they should be working. In order to try to compensate for the downtime, costs are added to the processes, with the hiring
of more people or with overtime, in addition to extra freight and emergency purchases, for example.
Often, plans are not fulfilled due to planning failures. Among the main reasons for these errors are lack of information, late information, wrong information, misuse of information and miscalculations.
Planning failure is usually blamed on planners, but, in many cases, plans are not fulfilled due to failures in execution, which include unavailability of equipment, absenteeism, lack of inputs or errors in theirapplication, throughput of substandard operations, etc.
Technology reduces waste and increases productivity in the field
Over the last 10 years, Staufen has helped companies in the sector and producers to overcome these challenges by acting on 4 fronts, prioritized according to the needs of each client and their level of maturity in these issues. Know here some
of the solutions you can use right now to improve your performance and productivity.

WHITE PAPER 2023: AGRibusiness
OUT NOW! Learn more about some exclusive solutions created by Staufen for the management of Agribusiness, focusing on the agricultural area, in this exclusive study.