The Agro Management and Control System

for modern egg production

amacs the Agro Management and Control System for permanent data acqu
location in the world
amacs is Big Dutchmans innovative Management and
Control System for modern egg production. Its software is
based on current browser and web technology.
Thanks to leading edge communication technologies,
amacs allows permanent data acqusition, control and
monitoring of both traditional and alternative layer houses
in real time from virtually any location in the world.
All farms, even if they are located at different places, can

be controlled and monitored from a single central PC.

Additional features include the ability to graphically visualize all house-related measuring and production data as
well as to transmit web cam pictures from the house in
real time. It goes without saying that alarm messages via
e-mail or SMS to mobile phone are also included in the
performance range of this new system.

climate

egg
collection

production

Transparent house = transparent production no problem thanks to amacs

manure drying

Ethernet

farm PC
central PC

Thanks to amacs, all layer houses, even if at different

places, can be controlled and monitored from a single
central PC. Depending on the specific requirements, up
to four functional areas (climate, production, egg
collection, manure drying) of every house can be

controlled and monitored. amacs sets entirely new standards for computer-controlled management systems
thanks to its extraordinary flexibility in the field of data
acquisition, data transfer, visualizations and tabulated
or graphical data processing.

uisition, real-time control and monitoring of layer houses, from virtually any
amacs a management system consisting of modular hardware & software components
Hardware: one basic unit and 4 intelligent modules
The basic unit as well as the intelligent modules are
necessary for the control of the 4 different functional areas
climate, production, egg collection and manure drying

of each individual house. The basic unit and the modules

are integrated into a control box, which will be constructed
according to the customers specific requirements.

basic unit

4 intelligent modules

Use of network technologies and leading edge communications technologies

House 1

House 2
module
module
module
module

1
2
3
4

module
module
module
module

basic unit

1
2
3
4

basic unit

modem
farm PC

House 3
module
module
module
module

1
2
3
4

basic unit

Ethernet

central PC

modem

Optimized house control consists of one

basic unit each, combined with up to 4
intelligent modules. The modules necessary for a specific functional area are
connected to the respective basic unit of
each house. Moreover, the basic unit provides additional display, web cam and
Ethernet connections. The Ethernet is used
to transmit data from the individual basic
units to the farm PC, from where they are
further transferred via telephone connection or Internet to the central PC in the
farm office.

All advantages at a glance

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Monitoring and control of the houses in real time

=> whenever the farm manager changes the computer settings, the changes take effect immediately
in the house;

Easy choice of different languages per mouse click;

Use of a web cam to transmit photos directly

from the house (optional);

Central data storage and processing per animal;

comparison with reference data stored in the
system;

High degree of flexibility thanks to different

interfaces for your own data processing;

Very stable, Linux-based system with separate

control in the house; modern glass fiber network
technology helps to prevent malfunctions caused
by over voltage.

Integrated log book and report system;

Alarm system via e-mail and SMS respectively;

Permanent visualization of house data on your PC;

Software: when booting amacs, the system graphically displays all houses to be
controlled and the different function keys
Adjustment and control of the entire
house climate
Adjustment and control of feeding,
feed weighing
Settings for manure drying, control
of air mixer
Adjustment and control of water
supply and lighting
Counting of eggs by means of an
egg counter
Total egg collection, control of egg
transportation
Production and livestock management,
calculation of production data
Visualization and listing of current
alarm messages
Graphical visualization of different
data
Web cam picture transmitted directly
from the house

The 4 functional areas depend on the actual installation concept

1. Climate with customer-specific illustration of your house on your PC

The functional area Climate comprises the

control of exhaust and fresh air, heating
and cooling as well as humidification.
By means of special sensors, which measure
the outside and the house temperature, amacs determines the degree of ventilation needed. All common
ventilation systems, from transverse to tunnel ventilation,
can be controlled.
Optimum house temperatures are an important prerequisite for high animal performance. Nevertheless, it
is only when ventilation is reduced to a minimum
(minimum ventilation) that the heating is activated by
amacs. All heating systems can be regulated by on/off

or analogously.
For high temperatures an efficient cooling system is of
utmost importance in order to achieve a constant high
laying performance. Depending on the temperature and
current air humidity, amacs controls the respective
cooling system Fogging Cooler or Pad Cooling in
the house.
Let us assume that you are in your office and you are
checking the house climate. You wish to increase the
house temperature by 2C? No problem! Just feed the
new temperature into amacs and the heating in the
house will be activated immediately.

2. Production comprises the entire feeding management, water supply, lighting

and livestock management

This comprehensive functional area comprises the entire feeding management including
the feed bin weighing, feed logging, light
control, water logging including alarm messages as well as livestock management.
Feeding in accordance with laying performance is a
decisive factor for saving feed costs. Thanks to amacs,
you can determine the feed consumption per tier, per

bird and per day at any time. The separately programmable feeding manager enables you to control
the feed intake either automatically or manually. Feed
consumption can be determined by means of an electronic feed weigher, feed bin weighing or pulse counting. Moreover, feed bin weighing also enables you to
control the feed deliveries of your suppliers.

Optimum water supply is a decisive prerequisite for high laying performance. amacs
records daily the water consumption (either
ml/hour or ml/day and hen) by means of an
electronic water meter. A timer monitors and controls
the water consumption. Using a water counting module
makes it possible to determine the water consumption
per tier.

A good lighting schedule greatly affects the

hens behavior, laying performance, egg
quality and feed utilization. For this purpose
amacs is equipped with a separately programmable time switch, a lighting level control together with a dusk/dawn simulation, allowing you to
create any lighting program you want. Moreover, a
light sensor allows active (real) light regulation.

Disturbances in the water supply of each tier are immediately signaled the red symbol in the picture indicates
the location of the disturbance. A function key for a
specific area edged in red usually signals disturbances
in the respective area.

In the picture on the right you can see how to control

the light manually.

3. Egg collection from laying performance to overall egg collection

Laying performance is recorded fully automatically by means of an egg counter. This

data necessary for reports and diagrams is
then stored in a data base.
Laying performance is monitored directly, so that it can
immediately be seen from the graphical house illustration how many eggs have been produced in which
house section. The colors indicate whether the current
egg production meets the farmers expectations.

By using the egg optimization module,

amacs is able to determine the velocity of
the egg belts in dependence on the amount
of eggs. In doing so the capacity of the egg
grader and packer can be used in the best possible way.
The above farm illustration shows the way of egg
transportation. The farmer can exactly see and precisely determine in which order the eggs are to be
collected.

4. Manure drying ensures fresh house air and little ammonia emissions

Air mixers, heat exchangers or radial fans

are regulated on the basis of outside temperature and manure drying temperature,
thus guaranteeing optimum and even
manure drying. It goes without saying that amacs also
controls the automatic filters in case of need.
The illustration on the left shows a cage house with
front air mixer, which is just being controlled
manually.

amacs can control up to 8 air mixers per house,

though it is also possible to control them manually.
The picture on the right illustrates both the front and
the back house section. Moreover, a filter is just being
cleaned.

Data processing and graphical visualization of the entire house and production data

He who gathers data knows more than others!

amacs collects a great variety of data,
which can easily and rapidly be processed
by your office PC. Feed utilization, feed/
water ratio, laying performance, mortality, hours of
heating and of course your complete climate control
are made visible to you in tables and charts.

Your own farm-specific data processing

no problem thanks to amacs
Thanks to its various interfaces, amacs constitutes
a highly flexible Agro Management and Control
System, thus enabling you to import data into
any MS-Office application, such as Excel, Word
or Power Point and to process data as well as to
create diagrams.

Power failure, deviations in temperature,

water and feed consumption as well as
minimum stock in the silo may all activate
an alarm. Thanks to amacs you are always
on the safe side as alarm messages are transmitted
via e-mail or SMS to a mobile phone.
Frequent disturbances can be detected and traced
back by means of the alarm statistics. Aptly-named
event filters make it possible to precisely select, for
instance, production problems or climate alarms. The
alarm statistics also serves as a farm logbook.

The special advantage:

all gathered data can be illustrated as
curves and can be combined freely by just
one mouse click (drag & drop).

amacs offers you the following excellent features and benefits:

Use of a report printer
Use of a data transmission modem
Alarm messages via SMS or e-mail
Web cam in the house

By using a web cam, pictures can be transmitted directly from the house to your
office PC, so that you can always see what
is going on in the house in real time.

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Remote control and maintenance via telephone

Radio control via PDA
Various interfaces for external, own data
processing

The mobile Organizer PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)

enables the user to actively intervene in the control
process of amacs or to enter important data during
his check-up walks through the house. The data is
transmitted into the data base management system
and can thus be used for further processing.

Let amacs keep you

continually informed
about the condition of
your operation. Accurate
and immediate production
information allows faster
and more accurate response,
which yields optimum results.

Asia
Big Dutchman Asia
No. 25, Jalan Pemberita (U1/49)
Temasya Industrial Park Section U1
40150 Shah Alam Selangor Darul Ehsan Malaysia
Tel. +60-3-556 923 20 Fax +60-3-556 958 30
e-mail: bdasia@bda.com.my
Germany
Big Dutchman International GmbH
Postfach 1163 49360 Vechta Germany
Tel. +49(0)4447-801-0
Fax +49(0)4447-801-237
E-Mail: big@bigdutchman.de

USA
Big Dutchman, Inc.
P.O. Box 1017 Holland, MI 49422-1017 USA
Tel. +1-616-392 59 81
Fax +1-616-392 61 88
e-mail: bigd@bigdutchmanusa.com

Technical details are subject to change. e 11/2002

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