Technology

Company uses smart scales to read farm produce weights

CAPTURE

Capture Solutions Lorenzo Boncompagni. FILE PHOTO | NMG

ICT applications firm Capture Solutions has come up with sector-to-sector softwares that it says seal loopholes exploited by users to fleece businesses and governments.

Capture says its apps are “tailor made solutions in specific defined processes”.

Water and gas, construction, finance and sales, and agriculture are some of the sectors it has come up with apps to manage and monitor.

Its Android-based WeightCapture app, for example, is used in purchases of goods that are weighed liketea, tobacco, milk, and, coffee.

The application manages the collection and documentation using a Bluetooth-enabled scale that sends real-time data to servers from the collection point or warehouses.

Capture says inadequate monitoring of processes across sectors denies county and national governments revenue.

It collected Sh50 million revenues in its development and management of these apps last year.

Capture has presence in Kenya, Belgium and Tanzania and has been in operation for three years.

Lorenzo Boncompagni, the founder, says they have been using short messages and the cashless payment platforms to link delivery and accounting.

“Farmers delivering milk, tea or coffee have their produce weighed by our scales where a receipt is automatically generated as well as a back-up text message indicating weight and monetary value for produce generated,” he said.

“No worker can tamper with a weighing scale or make wrong entries since a farmer places their index finger on a smart identifier.”

Mr Boncompagni says Capture’s big break was a beer distributor’s contract to develop a value chain app that linked sales point to the depot. It alerts the depot on replenishment and where marketing teams need to concentrate efforts.

At last week’s Nairobi Innovation Week, Mr Boncompagni said while executives knew technology would solve many ‘theft’ problems, there was no indication pilfering would soon stop.