Nearing 42 years in the country, Dole's pineapple plantation in Polomolok, General Santos is not only the largest in the Philippines but also the largest in the world. With the help of technology, Dole Philippines maintains thousands of hectares of land to grow pineapple and papaya which are processed into concentrates, chunks, tidbits, and fruit cocktails for local and international markets.
'Without technology, we couldn't survive,' said Kevin Davis, president of Dole Philippines. For Davis, gone are the days when people would go out on horses to manually check the crops. 'Now, the whole farm is mapped in GPS (geographic positioning systems). Our workers can easily monitor which crops are ready for harvest, and which areas are ready for planting,' added Davis.
Aside from monitoring the crops, another important aspect of operations in Dole is its plant-to-plant communication. Coordination between regional plants is a crucial element, especially when dealing with perishable goods. A good communication infrastructure should be in place to ensure the efficiency of operations. For Dole Philippines, a glitch in any of their systems, especially one as important as communications, is not a risk they are willing to take.
Until 2001, Dole was managing their telecommunications needs. But the company decided to focus more on food production rather than on maintenance of their network, so they signed GlobeQUEST to take care of the worries. 'What GlobeQUEST did for Dole was to maintain its point-to-point regional network via international private leased line,' said Ryan Pangilinan, GlobeQUEST manufacturing segment marketing manager.
However, this is still not as cost-effective as having all the regional networks connected to each other. Because of this, GlobeQUEST is currently migrating Dole's domestic and regional network to a Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) 'based Internet Protocol ' Virtual Private Network (IP-VPN). 'This enables any of Dole's domestic and regional sites to coordinate seamlessly, 24/7, through voice and data communications,' said Pangilinan.
The network is built over a fully digital, nationwide backbone using Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), and Internet Protocol on both fiber optic and digital microwave technologies. International connections are made using GlobeQUEST-owned capacity on APCN2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network 2), JUCN (Japan-US Cable Network), C2C, and CUCN.
'GlobeQUEST provides Dole with interconnectivity with our offices worldwide. Since we export perishable goods, it is a big help to have a seamless collaboration with the other regional offices,' said Jonah Edrolin, telecommunications, automation, and management information systems manager at Dole Philippines. 'It helps us keep track of what stocks we need to replenish so that we could deliver faster.'
Before Dole touched Philippine soil, the company was already making waves in Hawaii. James Drummond Dole founded the company in Hawaii in 1851. He came to Hawaii with an initial investment of US$1,000, degrees in business and horticulture and a love of farming. With these tucked under his belt, he began the first successful pineapple growing and canning operation, then called the Hawaiian Pineapple Company.
Dole developed and grew the pineapple business into Hawaii's second largest industry. The company made the word Hawaiian almost synonymous with the word pineapple, in achieving his goal of stocking pineapples in every grocery store in the country.
Dole's Worldwide Packaged Food Division operates three canneries in Asia: two in Thailand and one in the Philippines. These canneries supply North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. The pineapples used at these canneries are sourced from a large Dole-operated plantation and independent growers in the Philippines and Thailand.
Dole sources bananas, fresh pineapples, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, and other fruits and vegetables from the Philippines, Thailand, and Ecuador, and transports them to markets principally in Asia, New Zealand, and the Middle East.