Cerco Soft entendait développer une application mobile pour ses clients, un peu plus de 5 000 élevages de porcs dans le monde. Spécialisée dans le développement de logiciels pour le secteur de l’agriculture, cette entreprise n’avait aucune expérience avec les apps mobiles. C’est pourquoi elle a décidé de collaborer avec Cegeka qui a développe l’app «PigVision » pour iPad. Conviviale, cette app aide l’éleveur à gérer ses truies, un processus complexe et à forte densité de données.

1. CASE STORY
CEGEKA - Universiteitslaan 9 - 3500 Hasselt (Belgium) - T +32 (0)11 24 02 34 - E info@cegeka.com - www.cegeka.com
Cerco Soft wanted to develop a mobile application for its customers, over 5,000
pig farms worldwide. The company specialises in developing software for the
agricultural sector but didn’t have any experience with mobile apps. That’s why it
took on Cegeka, who developed the PigVision application for iPad. This is a user-
friendly application that helps pig farmers manage their sows, a complex and
data-intensive process.
Pig farmers work up to 30% more efficiently
with mobile app
ABOUT CERCO SOFT
With its total solutions for the entire agricul-
tural sector, Cerco Soft is the market leader
in Belgium. Cerco Soft provides solutions
for farmers, horticulturalists, animal feed
industry and retailers, consultants, con-
tractors, etc. The company is a subsidiary
of AgroVison.
CERCO SOFT
Arnold Jacques, Managing Director at Cerco Soft
“The Agile Project Method
used by Cegeka allowed
us to stay nicely within
the proposed budget
and prioritise the most
valuable functions for the
business."
ARNOLD JACQUES
Managing Director at Cerco Soft
“Pig farmers need to be able to look up and add
data about their sows quickly, on the go; other-
wise they have to do it at home on their desktop
computers in the evenings. PigVision saves them
an awful lot of time and enables them to make
decisions about their sows faster,” says Arnold
Jacques, Managing Director at Cerco Soft.
30% time-saving
There were a few technical
challenges linked to the
development of the applica-
tion. Arnold Jacques: “Pig
farmers need to be able to
process data for thousands
of sows very quickly, so
Cegeka developed a very
user-friendly interface
to make this possible. It
designed large touchscreen
buttons, standard iOS forms
and clear animations. The
application is fully func-
tional offline because pig
farmers are often in their stables without an
internet connection. PigVision then synchronises
the data automatically when the iPad goes online.
There’s no need to back-up; all data is stored in
our data centre in the Netherlands. Pig farmers
can save up to 30% more time with PigVision
compared to our desktop application, which is
already very fast.”
Because pig farmers always have the information
they need about their
sows to hand, they can
make crucial decisions
much faster.“Pig farmers
used to work with sow
charts that were hung
up by the animals in the
stables, but this was very
time-consuming and
laborious. It’s much more
efficient now with the
application. Reports can
be configured according
to your wishes, so there’s
no unnecessary infor-
mation in the overview.
And crucial results can be quickly highlighted
CHALLENGES:
• Develop a user-friendly, mobile
application
• Perform various functions quickly
• Fast reporting
• Application must be fully
available offline
• Automatic online data
synchronisation

2. CEGEKA - Universiteitslaan 9 - 3500 Hasselt (Belgium) - T +32 (0)11 24 02 34 - E info@cegeka.com - www.cegeka.com
CASE STORY
in dashboard reports to form a picture of the
production results.”
Deliberate choice for iOS operating
system
“We provide constant telephone support to
our customers, which is why we chose the iOS
operating system. Focussing on a single oper-
ating system means we
can support remote pig
farmers more easily,” says
Arnold Jacques. “Working
with a native app means
we can count on optimal
speed. All tablets run on
the same version, so we
can detect any problems
faster. It’s true that an iPad
is a bit more expensive,
but the difference in price
compared to other devices
is negligible for the pig
farmers if you take the app’s time-saving into
account. We’ve also integrated an RFID scanner
in the application so that pig farmers can detect
their animals quickly. And because all tablets are
the same, the scanner can be connected in the
same way for all our customers, which helps us
avoid problems.”.
Agile method bears fruit
“We couldn’t find many companies with lots of
experience developing complex mobile appli-
cations. We’re talking about millions of pieces
of information which have to be synchronised
with the tablets. The Agile Project Method used
by Cegeka allowed us to stay nicely within the
proposed budget and prioritise the most valuable
functions for the business. Every fortnight we
presented the application to various stakehold-
ers, so we could take feedback and changing
priorities into account
during development,”
says Arnold Jacques.
Two Cerco Soft employ-
ees were at Cegeka at
all times during the
development of the
application. “We had
the knowledge about
the pigs, and Cegeka
integrated all this
information in a great
application. Our two
employees have been fully trained to manage and
maintain the application further. The development
of the application only took six months, and the
result is impressive,” concludes Arnold Jacques.
“We had the knowledge
about the pigs, and
Cegeka integrated all this
information in a great
application.”
ARNOLD JACQUES
Managing Director at Cerco Soft
TECHNOLOGY:
• Agile Training & coaching
• Application Development
LESSON(S) LEARNED
Developing a mobile application requires a lot of
time and expertise. It’s important to be able to
adapt quickly during the development process,
so that users’ wishes are respected and optimal
use is made of the various functions. This is why
the interim evaluations – unique to the Agile
development method – prove so useful.
RETURNS/REVENUE
All PigVision application data is stored in the cloud,
so pig farmers don’t need to make any back-ups
and they can view and add to their data wherever
they are, at all times. The convenient user interface
saves lots of time at the pig farm: up to 30%. The
extensive reporting options make it easy for pig
farmers to look up crucial information quickly.
SOLUTIONS:
• native iOS development
• Agile project method
• Scrum
• test driven development