One great thing about farming is the amount of data available on almost every element of farming and yet we hardly tap into it. Data is so valuable and it helps you look at your farm in a different way. Not for everyone but so powerful! Being an engineer I am a number geek and love data. We are fortunate that we have a system that captures significant data each day on our herd. But while we have used basics we never really dive into real details and analysis. So over the last few weeks we have … [Read more...]
Farm Strategy Planning
During the last few workshops I have run with farmers, there has been huge interest in our farm's one page strategy document. Lean is not only about the tools we often talk about, but also has a huge strategic component. In a lean company a big process is strategic planning and cascading goals throughout the organisation - this is known as Hoshin Kanri in Japanese (goal policy deployment process in translation). While on our farm we keep the process much more simple and not as robust as … [Read more...]
Dry off – our easy lean “moving assembly line” process – working smarter not harder with lean.
Dry off - the crappy job that is done at the end of the season that no one looks forward to. Well with our lean "moving assembly line" dry off process, our team actually look forward to it. It is significantly less stressful for our people and cows. We have improved quality, reduced stress, improved hygiene/ cleanliness, reduced mastitis, reduced costs, and reduced the time significantly - our fastest round 13 minutes for 50 cows. Average 34 minutes/ 100 cows. It was a wacky idea last season and … [Read more...]
New Grass management – do it well & keep cows safe
New Grass - is it safe? For some farmers its "new grass" time. Good new grass management is vital to ensure good long term growth and cover. But even more important is good awareness of nitrate poisoning and keeping our animals safe. You will be surprised how many people (even those that have some Ag courses behind them) are not aware of risks of nitrate poisoning. Sadly we have lost calves in the past due to poor process and lack of awareness. Why? Well it was our error for "assuming' everyone … [Read more...]
Giving & receiving feedback – a key skill for farm success
Last week during our weekly CI (Continuous Improvement) session we started a series of discussions about some “soft skills” with our team. We will continue to work on these “soft skills’ over the coming months. Soft skills are our people skills – they cover communication, leadership, management, work ethic, teamwork, problem solving, decision making, time management, networking and conflict resolution among other things. Our particular focus is on constructive feedback and moving from … [Read more...]
Lean is about working smarter not harder
Listen to this great interview with Radio NZ for the Country Life show about how lean can help your farm. It talks about what we are doing on our farm, how we are introducing different lean principles and the big benefits we have seen so far. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/audio/2018703869/working-smarter-not-harder-the-lean-approach-to-dairying … [Read more...]
A Lean Farm is a People Farm
A Lean Farm focuses on and develops people. Last week we had our end of season Performance and Personal Development Reviews. We have trialled various versions of templates and formats for our reviews, continuously improving them to suit our needs and attempting to make them as simple yet effective as possible. We are not perfect yet and will continue to evolve these over time. Our format now is standard for everyone and contains 4 one page documents for each review – First Quarter, … [Read more...]
A Lean Farm is a strategic farm
Lean isn’t just about the tools like 5S, Visualisation and Standard Work. Importantly lean starts with the high level business strategy and how a farm’s goals are cascaded through the business into tangible actions for the whole team. This ensures that goals don’t just stay goals but can be practically achieved to take your farm forward. On our farm we hold an annual strategy day every year with the whole team. We ran this on Friday followed by our end of season team event. During our … [Read more...]
Lean Visual Management of calves
Lean Farming and Visualisation A key lean tool is visual management. This is about having real time, live information available and visual for the team to use to manage a process or area. This helps anyone immediately see what is happening and make real time decisions based on actual data. It also helps to immediately spot problems and therefore react quickly to any issues. Lean at Clovelly Farm Mark Miers and his team and Clovelly Farm in Tasmania have very impressive visual … [Read more...]
Lean tools for bulls
I have been running my LeanFarm training with farmers in Tasmania over the last few weeks and have come across some great examples of simple lean tools applied on farm to make life easier, more efficient, safer and prevent frustrating problems. Visualisation is a simple lean tool that can make your farm more productive. One great example I have seen is at Matthew Gunnigham's farm in northern Tasmania. His team painted their two bull teams in two bright colours (red and blue) to help quickly … [Read more...]
Safe Farm – lean tools will make a safer farm
Safe Farm using Lean: A Lean Farm is also a Safe Farm. Lean tools such a Visualisation and 5S can significantly help to improve safety on your farm. Our team has been working on improving our safety processes. We had a session about all hazards on farm and it really reinforced how dangerous our farms actually are. But with good safety awareness, visualisation and standard processes, we can make our farms a safer place to work and live. Our team are working on standard hazard and safety … [Read more...]
Lean Dairy Farm – Designing a Lean Dairy Shed/ Milking Parlour
A lean dairy farm also needs a lean dairy shed or milking parlour. Is your dairy shed or facilities a lean dairy shed? Are you thinking about building a new dairy shed and want to incorporate lean thinking into your shed design? I have been talking to a farmer in NZ that is in this process. I didn't incorporate a detailed section on this topic in my book (and if there is another edition I will do) but I had a quick think about some of the frustrations I have seen in our own shed and things to … [Read more...]