Denver, Feb. 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GeoShepard, a Colorado-based technology company focused on helping marijuana cultivators plan, review and measure crops digitally while capturing and delivering compliance data to government regulatory agencies, today announced the company has begun holding meetings with compliance boards and agencies across the country to highlight the benefits of the organization’s automated data entry solution. GeoShepard’s initial demonstration was to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Division of Measurement Standards (DMS).
“It’s crucial that agencies like the DMS are aware that technologies like ours exist and understand how they can serve as a solution to the complicated compliance process they oversee,” said Jay Lineberry, CTO at GeoShepard. “During our meeting, we witnessed an overwhelmingly positive response from those on the front lines of California’s weights and measures laws and regulations. While the division is a government agency, which means it cannot recommend any specific products, we believe the director and her colleagues in the cannabis sector of the division thoroughly enjoyed our scale solution and would advocate for its use if given the opportunity.”
According to DMS Notice D-19-01R, the proper selection of suitable scales for the cannabis industry must be based upon the specific application in which they are used. While DMS still recommends the use of an Accuracy Class II scale whenever possible, there may be some cases where an Accuracy Class III scale may be the best or only choice for the application at hand. The entire list of scales with an active NTEP Certificate of Conformance, including GeoShepard’s GeoScale™ solution, may be found on the National Conference on Weights and Measures’ website at: https://www.ncwm.com/ntepcertificates.
Through its GeoScale™ solution, GeoShepard allows cannabis cultivators to automate the data entry of compliance information into METRC, the end-to-end tracking and tracing solution specifically designed for government agencies regulating legalized marijuana in 12 states of the 33 states where marijuana has been broadly legalized in some form, including the District of Columbia and Colorado’s industrial hemp industry. Through a combination of a wireless smart scale and a mobile application that removes the friction of entering data into METRC’s portal, GeoShepard eliminates costly mistakes and reduces a considerable amount of labor for cultivators.
Leveraging the GeoShepard solution to create a seamless experience throughout the entire cultivation and retail process, cannabis cultivators and business owners alike are realizing significant benefits, such as better visibility into employee activity and performance, remarkable time savings and increased accuracy on reporting through error-proof compliance automation, as well as:
- 26% savings on labor costs.
- 42% savings on harvest costs.
To date, more than 350,000 lbs. across 82,000-plus batches have been harvested using GeoShepard’s automated data entry solution.
“Automated technologies are helping businesses across all industries — and the cannabis industry, which is expected to be nearly $40 billion by 2023, is no exception. We strive to help cultivators and are meeting with government agencies to help find ways to better solve the challenges that invariably come with cannabis cultivation, data entry and keeping track of inventory and weights, growth stages and any movement the plants have done,” said Lineberry.
The enforcement of California weights and measures laws and regulations is the responsibility of the DMS. The Division's activities are designed to:
- Ensure the accuracy of commercial weighing and measuring devices.
- Verify the quantity of both bulk and packaged commodities.
- Enforce the quality, advertising and labeling standards for most petroleum products.
Based in Sacramento, California with additional offices in Fresno and Anaheim, the DMS works closely with county sealers of weights and measures who, under the supervision and direction of the secretary of food and agriculture, carry out the vast majority of weights and measures enforcement activities at the local level.
For more information about GeoShepard or the company’s mobile cannabis data entry applications, please visit https://geoshepard.com/.
About GeoShepard
GeoShepard is a Colorado-based technology company focused on bringing insights and transparency to the recreational and medical marijuana industries. GeoShepard helps cultivators plan, review and measure crops digitally while capturing and delivering compliance data to government agencies regulating the growth and distribution of marijuana. The technology stores all relevant information to the cloud, saving significant time and money and providing additional transparency for cultivators. The SaaS platform delivers measurable advantages, including:
- Ease of Use: GeoShepard technology eliminated the need for hand-written records, increasing accuracy for cultivators.
- Employee Control: Different permission levels allow cultivators to employee access to all information. The time stamp feature increases transparency and responsibility and supports profitability by monitoring employee workflow
- Optimization: User studies show a significant decrease in labor time, increasing profitability for users.
- Planning: GeoShepard technology allows cultivators to view and analyze operations in real-time. Stored information helps cultivators learn from past harvests to increase yields and profitability.
For more information on enhancing your cultivation, visit us at https://geoshepard.com/.