“Working on real-life solutions makes the difference for me”

A background that combines technology and farming has been a key asset for Mario Aguado, who is part of the Digital Services Product Management team.

His journey at DeLaval started in his country, Mexico, 17 years ago. He has spent 14 years working at DeLaval in Tumba, Sweden. Mario´s father was a veterinarian in charge of mastitis and milk quality control on various farms in Mexico and the one who transmitted Mario the love and passion for dairy cows and fast cars. Mario has been joining his father in visiting dairy farms since he was a child. He was not so willing to be a vet as his father but was convinced he would enjoy working with technology applied to dairy cows.

Mario Agudo at Hamra farm

Mario studied computer systems engineering that he later integrated with his passion for helping solve dairy farmers’ challenges. Working with software that helps to manage all cows in one system was exciting for Mario and that’s how he became technical support manager for herd management for DeLaval in Mexico.

After three years and a bunch of suggestions on improving the herd management system, he was relocated from DeLaval in Mexico to DeLaval International in Sweden to be part of the team that developed the software and the complete platform that today we know as the farm management platform DeLaval DelPro™. Mario has been working on different projects, functions, or systems that DelPro manages or connects with.

Large herd in focus

In his current position, Mario continues to support the development of DelPro and is a key piece in the development of the services included in DeLaval Plus – as a part of the Digital Transformation at DeLaval. In addition, he oversees the system structure for DeLaval large herds worldwide, where he witnesses a growing tendency for bigger herds. He explains that particularly in China, the US and Saudi Arabia where for example, large farms can grow from 6,000 to 60,000 or even more cows regularly compared with a few years before.

Mario adds that through the years and the different projects he has managed, his contact with farmers, milkers, vets, and service technicians has always been crucial to fulfilling his work.

“I’m so happy I have travelled a lot because it’s an opportunity and an eye-opener to see farmer reality and most importantly, to see it from their perspective. This is one of the most important things we at DeLaval should continue doing. That’s what makes a difference when we design services or products, that they should help to solve real-life situations; that is what makes them successful”.

Solutions for real-life

Mario is supporting the different teams that are developing the DeLaval Plus platform and its services as well helping in the integration and evolution of DeLaval DelPro™.

To accomplish the goal of harnessing dairy farm data by building digital services for our customers, he adds that motivation comes from the fact that DeLaval aims to work with real-life solutions.

“To make a difference is important for me. All the hard work being done by our developers, testers, architects, product manager, product owners and many more who work on solutions that are put on farms and to see that it works as it should, and when the farmer turns their head back to you and say; “Great, it works! It will save me time. It will make my life easier. It will make my life better”. Well, that is inspiring!”.​​​​​​​

As passionate about technology, Mario is also an enthusiastic player of video games and an adrenaline lover; fast-speed cars and motorcycles remain a kind of “hidden hobby” from his younger years and using many network devices and computers in his home is not a secret for his wife.

“I don’t know; I might have eight to 12 different routers and switches and access points and computers because I like to play with those and do different things until my wife gets a bit upset because if I start replacing routers, then the internet can go down at home for a few minutes!”