RAPID
CITY, SD (Nov. 17, 2020) — C-Lock Inc, a Rapid City agricultural company utilizing
technology developed at South Dakota Mines, has grown into an international player
with sales exceeding $5 million a year and a customer base in more than 35
countries.
Launched
in 2005 by Dr. Pat Zimmerman, then the director of the Institute
of Atmospheric Science
at South Dakota Mines, C-Lock produces automated cattle-feeding systems – GreenFeed, SmartFeed and SmartScale. The
systems record critical data about livestock health with the goal of improving efficiency,
productivity and sustainability.
“I think my career as the director of the
Institute of Atmospheric Science and department chair at Mines helped prepare
me to create our company,” Zimmerman says.
GreenFeed,
Zimmerman’s first system, measures methane and carbon dioxide emissions in individual
ruminant animals. In more simple terms, GreenFeed measures the burps and
breaths of livestock, providing information that tells a producer such things
as which animals best utilize feed, which feed is highest quality and if an
animal is sick. Methane emissions from cattle are also a greenhouse gas and
contribute to climate change. GreenFeed has been used world-wide to study the
effectiveness of many varied methods to decrease cattle methane which will
inevitably decrease the environmental footprint of agriculture and increase
sustainability. Fortunately, many methods that have been researched to reduce
methane emissions from cattle can also have an economic benefit to producers
because they lead to more efficient management and growth of livestock.
Zimmerman
says the agriculture industry and ag researchers utilize GreenFeed to improve
animal genetics by removing less efficient animals from a herd. It also helps
them select better feed, identify additives that reduce methane production and
reduce costly illnesses and prevent deaths in livestock with early disease
detection.
C-Lock
sells a GreenFeed for large animals, a second for smaller animals such as sheep
or goats and a third “pasture system.”
While
GreenFeed measures methane and carbon dioxide emissions, SmartFeed, which the
company developed in 2017, is a self-contained portable system designed to
measure feed intake from individual large animals. The system continually logs
data about feed intake per visit per animal. Like GreenFeed, it transmits real-time
data which a producer can access on a smart phone or computer. For instance,
SmartFeed might alert a producer if an individual animal’s intake is down or
has been missed altogether. Zimmerman says it helps cattle producers make
better informed decisions on feed efficiency in a herd. “We can tell where the
calories go,” he says. “We can see when they are starting to run out of good
grass, and we can see if they are becoming sick.”
The
company also produces a SmartFeed Pro which is designed with a specially
designed door for better control. This design is used largely by research
scientists.
The
company’s third product, SmartScale, is a wireless cloud-connected scale system
that captures an animal’s weight and behavior each time the animal drinks
water. Again, it collects the data in real time identifying individual animals
by ear tag.
Zimmerman,
who worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research for 18 years prior to his time at
Mines, has handed over much of the day-to-day operations of C-Lock to his sons,
Scott Zimmerman, Tom Zimmerman, and longtime employee Mike Billars. Both Tom
and Mike are South Dakota Mines graduates. Several other of C-Lock’s 35 employees
are also Mines grads and the company has also employed numerous South Dakota
Mines students as interns.
Zimmerman
is proud that C-Lock produces much of its manufacturing needs in-house rather
than depending upon other manufacturers. For this reason, the company has held
up well under the stresses of the pandemic when other companies struggled with
supply chain issues.
C-Lock
3D prints parts for their systems using five printers that run virtually
nonstop. Most of their metal work needs are done in-house. The company also
does its own powder coating, laser cutting and builds the trailers needed for
each system.
In
September, C-Lock launched its Research Equipment Grant program, funding more
than $500,000 in equipment grant proposals to institutions using C-Lock
technology in new and cutting-edge research and testing. The company received 44
research proposals from 17 countries and the United States.
“We
were thrilled with the quality and quantity of proposals and feel this is a
clear indication of the broad application and interest in our technology
globally,” says Scott Zimmerman.
As
the company continues to grow, the Zimmerman's are excited to see what their
homegrown company will accomplish in the near future and in the long-term.