Less than 10 km north-west of Beauvais, in the Oise, it is impossible to miss the facilities of the SCA of Milly-sur-Thérain: it is one of the largest cereal cooperatives in France and one of the older. Directed since 2002 by Arnaud Clément, a graduate engineer from the UniLasalle school, it will celebrate its 90th birthday next year.
With a turnover of 28 million euros, it collects and markets nearly 100,000 tonnes of cereals and oilseed products (rapeseed, sunflower, etc.) annually.
It also supplies its 180 members with fertilizers, plant health products, seeds and livestock feed. And she advises them on agricultural technologies. It operates six storage silos.
Dematerialization and traceability
A few months ago, the cooperative, which employs a dozen permanent staff, decided to transform its entire management by renovating its dematerialized invoicing procedures, based on its EDI (electronic document interchange) experience. The other challenge was compliance with legislation on the traceability of phytosanitary products.
Following a call for tenders, the SCA selected Agorinfo, editor of the Silos software solution, adapted to the management of cereals. This publisher, which has also developed Libre Service Agricole, Logiviande and Comptinnov, among others, has been part of the group of vertical French publishers WeSoft since September 2021 (around 4 million euros).
With the Silos application, the Milly-sur-Thérain cooperative has adopted fully digital management of cereal collections and central purchasing invoicing. It was also able to optimize the operation of its silos. The use of the “cereals” module has also made it possible to deploy new features with high added value, such as the publication of dashboards displaying the evolution of market prices.
Connection with business software
The cooperative has also set up an extranet which manages relations with members. They can consult various valuable information: follow-up of deliveries and invoicing, business information and regulatory data.
The management and accounting processes are based on an open solution (in the “open source” sense) which facilitates interconnection with the business software used within the cooperative.
In addition, the SCA communicates regularly with the Agorinfo users’ club in order to assess new needs and discuss the most relevant innovations. The ecosystem uses a set of software called OAD (agricultural decision support tools). They provide, for example, the possibility of making important choices: how to proportion the use of fertilizers and phytosanitary products; how to spread them in the best place and at the best time; when and how to analyze soils, etc.
This software has been redeveloped around a new common “framework” using “object” oriented languages and flexible “responsive design” type formats (accessible on all types of terminals). One of the key objectives is to “factorize central functionalities and develop new specific business-oriented modules”.