Consistent, reliable, and efficient – how Rio Tinto uses SWAN Systems to keep irrigation on track across the Pilbara
In Western Australia’s Pilbara, Rio Tinto manages agricultural projects that supply fodder crops to the local industry and beyond. The work is carried out by small, fly-in fly-out teams, often with limited irrigation experience. Maintaining continuity and efficiency under these circumstances is a constant challenge.
For Herman Conradie, who leads these projects, the solution was to find a single irrigation system that everyone could understand and trust.
By adopting SWAN Systems, Rio Tinto has been able to simplify scheduling, ensure reliable data across teams, and remove the guesswork from irrigation decisions.
“The SWAN system has given us the opportunity of one source of data and one source of reliability for each individual in each team. It doesn’t matter who’s doing the scheduling or how much experience they have – it’s the same source of history and the same source of future. It takes all the guesswork out of it.”
Consistency has been the biggest gain. With a shared platform, operators and managers can access the same schedules, identify irrigation and crop trends, and avoid over- or under-watering across different pivots and conditions.
“It’s been a huge game changer from a management perspective. With SWAN, we’re not overwatering or leaching, we know exactly how far we can push the amount of water we put onto a crop, and we can manage our agricultural projects without compromising other operations or environmental obligations.”
After years of development and refinement, Herman says the collaboration has become one of their strongest success stories:
“For our circumstances, it’s probably one of the biggest success stories we’ve had in our agricultural projects.”
