Côme TORTAT

The time has come to bid farewell to Axereal, after a year that has been as enriching as it has been formative. 
formative. On September 5, the end of my contract will bring to a close this year in the Approvisionnement Production Végétale (APV) department. I'm now continuing my studies with a Master's degree at a business in Paris.

The year I've spent in the APV department has enabled me to acquire skills and knowledge in a variety of fields, some of which I'm still working on in a variety of fields, some of which I was not very familiar with. During this year spent working with the APV team and my tutor in particular, I was able to work on a wide range of projects, all of which were very interesting. 

Beyond the projects, this year at Axereal has been rich in encounters. I've been lucky enough to work 
with experienced professionals who trusted me and helped me to refine my career plan project. I've evolved in a pleasant, dynamic team, where humor and seriousness make a wonderful pairing!

I'm leaving with the feeling that I've not only grown professionally, but also personally. I'd like to extend my warmest thanks to the team I've had the pleasure of working with. 
Their expertise and kindness have greatly contributed to my professional development. 
development. I would particularly like to thank my tutor for having placed her trust in me throughout this year.

Hi, this is Côme! I’m back with a new article on my blog. Today, I’m going to tell you about a tool. It’s something I’ve spent a lot of time working on this year, with the department’s planning manager and my supervisor: the fill plan. If you’re interested in finding out how we manage the grain contracts and the stocks in the grain elevators, you’ve come to the right place!

At Axereal, we use a piece of software developed by a start-up called Agrisight. In fact, we were their very first client. It’s vital for calculating our fill plan, which is what we use to organise and optimise our grain elevators. But how does it work, exactly?

We have to enter a very large amount of information into the tool: the origination forecasts, the storage volumes for each storage bin, the capacities for drying and grading grain, the modes of transport available (trains, barges and lorries), the sat nav coordinates for all the elevators, the origination volume forecasts and even the market price for the future contracts. All this data is stored in two Excel files which we import into the software.

Once these files have been imported, the software gets to work. And it doesn’t produce some quick back-of-the-envelope calculation! The process can take anything between three and fifteen hours, which is why we set it working before we leave the office and let it run during the night. The software calculates all the possible combinations to optimise the storage, drying, grading and delivery of the grain, with one clear aim: to minimise costs and the carbon footprint.

For example, if the software needs to deliver 200 tonnes of rapeseed to Rouen port, it could suggest dispatching it from a grain elevator near Rouen, or else from a site which is further away but can load barges so that the goods can be shipped to the port along inland waterways. Each calculation result is called a “Run”.

If you read my last article and you’ve been following closely, you’ll realise that the next stage is to study the Run in Power BI. This is because, once the Run has been calculated, we have to analyse it and adjust the parameters according to the current situation on the ground: maybe a grain elevator has broken down, or the harvest of a certain variety isn’t as good as we expected, etc. We repeat this process until we have a result that is optimised to the greatest possible degree. The work is spread over several months and we do it four times a year, in particular for the summer harvest (July-August) and the autumn harvest (September-October). This one is often the trickiest, because of the moisture in the grain.

I hope this overview has given you a better understanding of what the fill plan is and all the work it entails. Many of the cooperative’s other degree apprentices write blogs too, so do check them out. And if you’re looking for an apprenticeship yourself, take a look at our vacancies. There are some great opportunities!

Hi! I’m Côme! In this, my first blog post, I’m excited to tell you about the project I’m working on at the moment, which is going to be one of the main focuses of my apprenticeship year.

Can you believe that I’m working right at the heart of the project to set up KPIs in Power BI? If you haven’t used Power BI before, it’s a software tool. It might look a bit intimidating to begin with, but once you know how to use it, you get hooked very quickly!

As you know, I’m doing my apprenticeship placement in the Axereal Crop Production Supply Chain department. We’re responsible for making sure that the right grain is available so that all the flows between the grain elevators, where grain is stocked, and the end customers can run smoothly. It’s vital for us to be able to track every stage in detail. In terms of data, we have to monitor quantities delivered, delays, cancellations and much more.

At the moment, we track some of our indicators in Excel, and update them manually. And that’s why I’ve been asked to work on this aspect of our operation, in partnership with my supervisor. What’s the project all about? The aim is to move all the KPIs over to Power BI and connect them to our internal database so that they can be updated automatically every day. Then, the tools will be made widely available to users across Axereal.

I’m learning an enormous amount through my work on this project. Not only am I improving my Excel skills and getting stuck into Power BI, I’m also learning to code in SQL and work efficiently with enormous databases.

Are you interested in finding out more about what my work at Axereal involves? Then look out for my next article for another glimpse behind the scenes in the Axereal Supply Chain department!

Until then, there are plenty of blog posts where you can read what other apprentices are up to within the cooperative. See you very soon!