Lean thinking for sheep and beef farmers
Last week I ran workshops in Waikato and Northland for sheep and beef farmers thanks to @ Beef and Lamb NZ and @ruraltrust for sheep and beef farmers. Some feedback I received: “what a fantastic workshop”, “I could listen to you all day!” “such a refreshing approach to farming” and “this is so needed in the industry – we need to change how we think and do things”. Is lean thinking relevant to sheep and beef? Absolutely!
Lean management and continuous improvement
The word “lean” can be a bit off putting I agree…. but essentially it is about a management or operating philosophy for your farm business that focuses on continuous improvement through the identification and elimination of waste. The goal of lean management is to produce a high quality product that the customer wants, delivered when needed, at the lowest cost, with the highest animal welfare, and produced safely, ethically and sustainably and importantly delivering PROFIT! Is that not relevant to sheep and beef farmers? Don’t we all want to create such a product? Of course we do… and we have to remember that we are actually producing a product. Yes its different to making cars……. but it is a product! We are in fact producers.
Define and standardise processes
In farming we have a lot of processes believe it or not. They may not be very well defined but they are processes. In fact everything we do on farm is some sort of process. These processes are tasks we do to get outcomes we want. Ideally if the process is good we get the right outcome. However if the process is not good or it is not defined then potentially we don’t get the right outcome. Every process is an opportunity to question how we are doing something, is it the best way and what can we do to improve it. Once the process is defined, we can standardise it so that anyone that goes and does that process, does it the same consistent way and gets the same consistent result.
Sheep and Beef processes are similar to Dairy
Yes Sheep and beef is a little different to dairy…. but some of the biggest improvements we have made on our farm are on processes that are outside the dairy shed! Processes that are the same or similar to processes and activities in sheep and beef farming particularly those that occur only seasonally. And there are hundreds of activities or processes that are the same for dairy and sheep and beef – calving (lambing), mating, fencing, fixing water issues, farm vehicle maintenance, drenching, animal treatments, pasture management, cropping, fertiliser application, pest/weed management…… the list goes on. All of these activities are processes that can be defined and standardised and continuously improved!
REPETITIVE processes!
Why is lean thinking relevant for sheep and beef…? Most of what we do on farm is actually a REPETITIVE process (as per the examples above) – that means we will do that process over and over again whether it is every week, every month or every season. This presents a huge opportunity to continuously improve all of these processes. And lean thinking is about continuos improvement through the identification and elimination of waste. So when you go and do your next job on farm, think about am I going to do this task again this week, this season or next season. If the answer is yes then “what can I do to make this process easier and better for next time?”
Farming is Labour intensive
Farming is also extremely labour intensive. Of course with the advancement of technology it is getting less so but there is still a big labour element. Ideally we want to make our work easier, smarter and get better results. Some of the biggest frustrations I hear from sheep and beef farmers is about not enough time in the day, the long hours, never getting through things, team members doing things incorrectly and not being able to trust others to do the job right.
When we have a job that is heavily reliant on people, there are multiple variables we need to consider… examples are safety and well being, efficient labour utilisation, and preventing mistakes or human errors that affect farm results. Labour is also one of our biggest farm costs. So how we utilise our labour is quite important so as to not waste it. Ideally we want our people to work smarter not harder, to work efficiently and safely, and importantly to be able to effectively deliver the right results. Putting in good processes is essentially in achieving all of this.
So just a few points as food for thought next time you wonder whether lean thinking is relevant to your sheep and beef farm :-)