The most surprising thing about Wayd McNally’s company isn’t that it’s successful. It’s that it’s not more successful.
The Prince Edward Island entrepreneur founded Sensor Wireless in 2002.
He has customers in more than 40 countries from Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé to potato farmers cropping a few hundred acres.
Sales are currently about $1 million annually, but McNally expects them to increase at least eight-fold in the next five years.
There’s a simple reason for that optimism – virtually every one of his damage-monitoring sensor devices pays for itself in the first few years or even months.
Read Also
Agri-business and farms front and centre for Alberta’s Open Farm Days
Open Farm Days continues to enjoy success in its 14th year running, as Alberta farms and agri-businesses were showcased to increase awareness on how food gets to the dinner plate.
These devices include Smart Spud, the Crackless Egg and Produce QC, which instantly measure damage in potatoes, eggs and fruit as they are harvested or processed.
It isn’t hard to demonstrate how these devices can reduce damage and increase margins. Nevertheless, many people are reluctant and keep telling McNally “not right now.”
“You would think everyone would always be striving to do better than everyone else,” says McNally. “But there’s almost a resistance to that. Many people are comfortable just being in the middle.”
McNally was a young consulting agrologist helping a potato farmer figure out how to reduce bruising and cutting caused by his harvester when he came up with the idea of the Smart Spud.
The device, the same size and shape as a real potato, can be tossed on the harvester’s conveyor and will wirelessly transmit vibration data as it moves into the hopper and the truck. It not only allows you to easily zero in on problem areas – a slipping belt or chipped gear ring – but optimize things such as conveyor speed or incline.
“Whether you’re a small farmer or a running a billion-dollar bottling organization, figuring out where the problems are occurring is a guessing game,” says McNally. “If you can buy a system for a couple of thousand bucks and increase your pack out by 10 percent, why wouldn’t you do that?”
First off, technology is a pain and takes time to master. Second, efficiency is hard work. That 10 percent increase in pack out isn’t likely to come from one thing. It’s a one percent here, half of one there kind of thing.
It’s easy to see why a Smart Spud or Produce QC, a similar device used for tree fruits, melons and tomatoes, works in theory but for many people, the reaction is, “let the neighbour try it first.”
There’s a lesson here for all of us, including those who aren’t in the produce or egg business.
In effect, these late adopters are saying, “the technology is cheap, looks like it will pay for itself very quickly and add significant dollars to my bottom line. But I don’t want the bother.”
OK, that’s a bit harsh. McNally frames it differently.
“Money is very tight in farming, everyone is watching their spending and besides, they’ve all got a lot going on,” he says. “So it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.”
In fact, some of his earliest customers came on board because they contract to companies who insist on the highest quality and are quick to drop growers who don’t measure up.
But others couldn’t wait to get their hands on one of his devices.
We all like to think we’re efficient and committed to quality but most of us aren’t that keen. As we rush to get the job done, our motto changes to good enough.
But that can change, says McNally. Over the years, he’s seen customers embrace what he calls “a culture of quality improvement.”
The nice thing about the stuff McNally deals with – cracked eggs and bruised potatoes – is that you can precisely measure the results. Many key areas of business such as marketing, human resources or risk management don’t come with that kind of a scorecard.
We can say we’re dedicated to being the best we can be in all of those areas, but are we really? McNally’s experience shows that good enough is a natural instinct. But to succeed in business, good enough really isn’t.
Glenn Cheater is editor of the Canadian Farm Manager, the newsletter of the Canadian Farm Business Management Council.
