How Ôplant cultivated urban agriculture success with a custom ERP built on Zoho Creator
"Zoho Creator has transformed our operational efficiency, allowing us to dedicate more time to our mission of sustainable urban agriculture."
- Benoit Gonneville Damme CTO, Ôplant Urban Farms
About Ôplant
Established in 2015, Ôplant Urban Farms is a microgreen-producing enterprise based in Montréal. The company’s mission is to offer a wide selection of high-quality, locally-produced leafy greens and microgreens year-round using environmentally sustainable methods. Ôplant aims to democratize indoor agriculture in urban areas by using advanced hydroponic technology that ensures food safety and quality.
"Our vision at Ôplant is to revolutionize urban agriculture, making sustainable food production an integral part of city living."
- Benoit Gonneville Damme,CTO, Ôplant Urban Farms
The challenge
Scaling up presented many challenges for Ôplant. One major issue was building an ERP system to manage production scheduling, task management, and inventory. Previously, management in these areas was handled by a combination of products and software, leading to complex, time-consuming, and error-prone processes. Ôplant knew that it required a custom tool to streamline operations.
"We struggled with task management and inventory tracking, which were both crucial for our operations. It was a headache to handle them through different interfaces. We needed to build our own tool."
- Guillaume Salvas,Co-founder, Ôplant Urban Farms
The solution
Ôplant chose to implement Zoho Creator because of its customizability and user-friendly interface, which allowed the company to build an ERP that catered to its specific needs. The ability to automate workflows and integrate operations made Zoho Creator the perfect solution for the organization.
"Zoho Creator stood out because of its flexibility and the ease with which we could customize it to fit our unique requirements. It was an easy choice for me since I had freelanced as a Zoho Creator developer earlier."
- Benoit Gonneville Damme,CTO, Ôplant Urban Farms
End-to-end custom ERP
With Zoho Creator, Ôplant developed an end-to-end ERP system for managing key operations. The system included templates for tasks, product descriptions, instructional images, and a comprehensive dashboard for monitoring company tasks. Dashboards and reports facilitate better sales and inventory decision-making.
Environmental parameters, like temperature, CO2, and humidity, were previously managed by different software, but are now automated through Zoho Creator.
"We've built a system where employees can see all tasks on tablets, ensuring everything is logged and tracked in real time, improving our workflow immensely."
- Guillaume Salvas,Co-founder, Ôplant Urban Farms
The custom ERP system also logs and archives daily cleaning and sanitizing tasks, enabling employees to check their assignments on tablets, complete them, and ensure compliance. Any non-conformities trigger automatic email notifications for immediate intervention.
"I really pushed my knowledge of the app with Deluge, and this is when I understood its great potential. I realized I could customize it fully to meet the company's needs."
- Benoit Gonneville Damme,CTO, Ôplant Urban Farms
Ôplant implemented an integration with Growlink's API to achieve precise, real-time irrigation adjustments based on plant needs, ultimately improving water and nutrient delivery. Growlink is a smart agriculture solution that optimizes crop management through advanced monitoring and control systems. Additionally, integrating Creator with Shelly, a leading smart home automation provider, has enhanced Ôplant's operational efficiency by allowing for lighting automation.
"From the seed stage to the customer stage, I am able to manage distributors and clients, and see sales forecasts and seasonal trends."
- Sarah Farley Gélinas,President and CEO, Ôplant Urban Farms
Benefits and ROI
The implementation of Zoho Creator has significantly improved Ôplant's operational efficiency. Automation of various processes has saved time, reduced errors, and allowed the team to focus more on its core mission. The scalability of Zoho Creator has also supported Ôplant's growth from a small facility to a large-scale operation.
"One of the things we like the most about Zoho Creator is its scalability. We started small and as we grew, Zoho Creator grew with us, accommodating our increasingly complex processes."
- Benoit Gonneville Damme,CTO, Ôplant Urban Farms
Looking forward
Damme adds that Ôplant plans to explore Zoho Creator and its functionalities even more going forward. The company aims to enhance data analytics, improve customer management, and integrate Creator with more tools to support its growth and innovation in urban agriculture.
"What we’re expecting with Zoho Creator is limitless. It’s truly a platform that will stay with us for years to come."
- Benoit Gonneville Damme,CTO, Ôplant Urban Farms
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Zoho Creator?
Zoho Creator is a low-code application development platform that allows users to create custom applications on their own, with minimal coding experience. The intuitive drag-and-drop interface empowers developers and business users to build web and mobile applications that satisfy all their unique requirements with ease.
Are applications built on Zoho Creator scalable?
Applications built on Zoho Creator are built to auto-scale—the back-end infrastructure seamlessly scales as business demand grows. Currently 22,000K customers across 180+ countries are using over 6 million applications built using Zoho Creator, a testimony to the power of the platform.
Does Zoho Creator have a free plan?
Yes, Zoho Creator has a free plan. This plan comes with a limited feature set and only has one user, one application access, 250 MB storage, and 1,000 records. However, you have the option to upgrade to the paid plan whenever you wish.
What can I build on Zoho Creator?
Be it a task manager, a CRM, an ERP, or an application for almost any situation—you can build it on Zoho Creator. Just drag and drop elements on our visual builder and see your apps come alive instantly.
Can I build mobile apps on Zoho Creator?
Yes, the apps you build on the web run natively on PCs, tablets, and both iOS and Android mobile devices. You can also rebrand them and share it with your employees and customers instantly.