Customer case study

Innovation in the gerbera sector is receiving a powerful boost with the GearStation Gerbera: the AI-driven vision solution that automates and integrates the entire quality assessment process on existing bunching machines. Gearbox's solution was developed at the request of and in collaboration with LG Flowers and has been in daily production for some time. Now, nine other gerbera growers are also taking a big step towards the fully automated greenhouse of the future with this solution. This is a great development in gerbera automation and a basis for further development in the future.

In September, nine leading gerbera growers visited LG Flowers, where the GearStation Gerbera has now been fully integrated into the business process. LG Flowers played an important role as a practical partner in the development and is enthusiastic about the results. The meeting was coordinated by Florpartners, which supports and guides the group of growers in this innovation process. The growers were informed about the most important experiences to date and Gearbox's practical approach to the integration process, and were able to experience first-hand how the AI solution makes daily work much easier.

The GearStation Gerbera automates the entire quality assessment process by integrating an AI-driven vision solution into existing bunching machines. Whereas quality control was traditionally manual, time-consuming and subjective, the GearStation Gerbera ensures 100% objective quality assessment.

Capacity increase

• Capacity increase - Quality assessment through the use of smart cameras and AI assessment, enabling a stable 12,000 flowers per hour to be processed with less human intervention.

• Quality improvement – Consistent and objective assessment, the ability to sort into multiple classes and separate waste, resulting in fewer claims. But also always an accurate quantity of stems in a bunch.

• Data & insight – All assessments result in data that can be used for management purposes: average flower data, performance per employee (in combination with work registration and insight into daily product output).

LG Flowers has been closely involved in the development of the GearStation Gerbera from the outset and has now fully integrated the solution into its own process. The company is seeing clear results: "Quality control is significantly faster and more consistent. This not only saves on labour costs, but also ensures stable and predictable product quality. What's more, the data generated by the GearStation Gerbera provides LG Flowers with new insights to further optimise the production process," says Arnold van der Meulen, Quality Manager at LG Flowers.

LG Flowers and the nine progressive gerbera growers have joined forces to take the next step in automation. The first step has now been taken with Gearbox's GearStation Gerbera. Florpartners is supporting the growers in this process at an organisational level.

With this innovation, the sector marks a significant breakthrough in labour savings, process stability and increased efficiency. It also provides a positive impetus for further development and innovation in the gerbera cultivation production process.