Nowadays, the world is at the process of Industrial Revolution 4.0 supported by artificial intelligence (AI), super-computer, big data, cloud computing, and digital innovations that is moving on a very fast pace that will impact directly on economy, industry, government, and global politics.
Industrial Revolution 4.0 is marked by smart industrial process, referring to the application of automation such as machine-to-machine and human-to-machine communication, artificial intelligence (AI), and lastly the sustainable development of digital technology.
Moving on, Industrial Revolution 4.0 can also be defined as the effort to integrate production line with the cyber industry, transforming all production process to run online through an internet connection as the main support.
Digital Technology Application in Plantation Business
As the leader of palm oil industry, Indonesia need to improve their process immediately. Process efficiency and operational in the upstream sector need to be improved immediately, especially concerning the activities that involves a lot of labor power, infield activities such as plant maintenance, land maintenance, fertilizing activities, weeding, harvesting and transportation of fruit, and to weighing and sorting. The matter is because inefficiency of time and cost often happens on this sector.
The implementation of digital technology on the plantation industry, especially palm oil, will facilitate various work sectors on the field. Collection of statistic data from different plantations will be easier and faster, because it doesn't need manual work. The excellence of digital technology is that it can photograph and take picture of fresh fruit bunches, and it has precise location in the field by using tablet or smartphone that is connected with the satellite GPS.
Therefore, field managers will easily track and monitor the activity and performance of workers in real-time, and they can monitor the quality of the fruit and knowing precise location of the problematic area, without the need to be on location.
Besides the simplicity of transferring data from field to excel and making quality report of the fruits, digitalization of plantation industry simplifies the recording of worker's attendance and simplifies field workers to process the data for wages and incentives.
In principle, the use of digital technology is replacing manual process with technology, it will reduce the operating costs, saving time on the transmission of data information, creating transparency, and prevents manipulation of report. Other than that, implementation of digital systems in the plantation sector will reduce fraudulence because it has digital control and monitoring, so it will maximize cost efficiency and increase productivity of palm oil plantations in Indonesia.
In Indonesia, the application of Industry 4.0 on plantation sector, especially palm oil, has to be applied consistently, it is expected to increase productivity, reduce operational cost, and maximize efficiency to increase palm oil exports.
To increase productivity and efficiency optimally, technology such as Internet of Things (IoT), Advance Robotic (AR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Digitalized Infrastructure (DI) must be implemented soon.
