معرفی هزینه یابی مستقیم و اقدام مبتنی بر هزینه یابی در سیستم مدیریت یک مزرعه: مدل مفهومی

We present the model of a new information system for agribusiness management that supports Direct Costing and Activity Based Costing methodologies. We conducted interviews with key-informants to evaluate their needs and identify the information requirements for the introduction of structured cost management approaches in a Farm Management Information System. The paper presents a viable design of the system supported by a working prototype and a set of reports for farm decision makers. This system offers precise information about crop costs, with general costs allocation procedures based on the consumption of activities, and enables sensitivity analyses.

Farm Management Information Systems (FMIS) are the subject of growing attention in research since they can benefit from recent technological developments in terms of new Web-based services and Precision Agriculture (PA) technologies [1]. Nevertheless, large part of the interest is on the interfaces between FMIS and machines, operators, and PA devices, and there is a consistent lack of attention on how the large amount of data is processed to support farm management [2]. In particular, cost analyses appear not particularly developed in actual FMIS. Costs are central elements in managerial decisions and especially in complex organizations that typically manage several products in the same production facility, such as farms: the appropriate allocation of general costs to products impacts the way in which products economic performance are interpreted and reported. Therefore, we propose a model of a FMIS that introduce modern approaches to manage costs in farm businesses: Direct Costing (DC) and Activity-based Costing (ABC) approaches. The aim of this paper is to identify the information requirements for the development of a DC and ABC in a FMIS. In the next sections, we review relevant literature about FMIS, DC, and ABC approaches. Then, we depict the methodology applied in defining the model with the involvement of key-informants from agribusiness. Finally, we propose the results explaining the design of the model of the system with diagrams to highlight data structure and data flows. This study is part of the on-going EU ICT-AGRI ERA-NET research project "RoboFarm", funded by the Italian inistry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Policies, which aims at combining ICT, sensors, and Robotic technologies to develop an evolved FMIS for farm management.

As part of the literature about FMIS design and introduction, we focused on cost control, investigating the information needs related to the introduction of DC and ABC approaches in farm management with the support of a dedicated information system. We analyzed through interviews the requirements of farm managers and we combined them with the information needs of a DC and ABC application. The conceptual model is detailed with a DFD and a E-R diagram. We developed a prototype of the system along with a set of reports that introduce a detailed view of costs per crop, allocating general costs. Finally we designed what-if analyses to enable a satisfactory decision making process. The next steps are the introduction of the system in a cloud-based application linked to machines and operators. We identify two areas of further investigation. First, the interface with tools and machines can be designed to support an automatic process of data collection. We consider that a staging area that consolidates data before introducing them in the database is a solution that protects from erroneous recordings andincomplete transmissions, still reducing the data input workload. Second, in the reports section, we look towards the introduction of optimization methods, such as, for instance, linear programming, in the definition of the combination of crops per farm. Farms would benefit from the adoption of a ophisticated decision support system supported by operations research technologies that combines different decision variables.