We love keeping info in our heads but its bad Farmers are very good at keeping a lot of information inside their heads. But this is not healthy for them or helpful to their team if they work with others. It is also not an effective way of operating a business. Can't take time off farm If everything is in your head, then it makes it very hard to hand over your job or farm business to someone else even for a day. And when you do take a few days off, only to return back to the farm and be … [Read more...]

Complex processes There are lots of elements to rearing calves. Health, feeding, cleanliness and hygiene, weight management, pen maintenance, calf flow from pens to paddocks. While we have one dedicated role each season that is responsible for this to create good consistency, accountability and results (with a second fill in for the 2 days off), many farmers will be using a number of people to fill this role. Which ever approach you use it's important to be clear about what your process is … [Read more...]

Be better organised With calving starting in the Southern Hemisphere this week, it becomes busier for farmers. It is important to be well organised, for the team to know exactly what they are responsible for, when tasks need to be complete and that critical path tasks are synchronised correctly between people. Eliminate chaos and inefficiency I remember clearly our first few calving when one person would be bringing new calves in, while a second person was still trying to feed them, all … [Read more...]

Fantastic Fishbone diagram - a lean tool   We did our PD testing a couple of weeks ago and our empty rates this season were well above our target of 7% despite having an amazing season, lots of feed, great above average weights, excellent production, good results for our submissions etc. So it was very disappointing. We have to remember this is a defect so a waste for our business. We could have said "oh well, hopefully we do better next season". Or we could have just jumped to a … [Read more...]

Poor work/ life balance? 38% of UK farmers that attended my recent webinar on lean for dairy farming, said that their biggest challenge at the moment is time/ work life balance. Farmers that I have worked with in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and other countries also share this challenge. Is this you too? If yes, why can’t we make farming the “lifestyle” we actually want by working smarter not harder and getting our time back. Lean management is used by hundreds of thousands of people and … [Read more...]