I regularly get asked whether lean is only suitable for larger farming businesses. The answer is absolutely not. It is just as useful for smaller farms. If you are an owner operator time is even more precious to you. It is even more important that you are as efficient and effective with your time as […]

We don’t just want to survive the future, we want to thrive in it. Change is inevitable.   Happy New Year! It is always exciting to start a new year and while there is still quite a bit of uncertainty in the air around the world, we need to start on the front foot. Everything […]

A lot of time and motion and waste During and after calving, a big part of our jobs is to feed all the calves. In this process there is a lot of motion on farm and also a lot of non value added work. Most farms have calves spread all over the farm in various […]

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 […]

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), […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

Well we are coming to the end of the year. And what a year it has been! While many have really struggled with the unchartered times, I have thoroughly enjoyed this year. Not only did it give me time to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life that really matter – spending quality […]

I have run dozens of LeanFarm workshops and worked with hundreds of farmers again this year and we always start the workshops by asking “what are your biggest frustrations/ problems” and “what is your burning platform for being here”. It is really interesting that no matter where the farm is, what type of farming, time […]

We started mating this week and so last week we had our Mating team training session as we do every year to refresh the team on our mating process, make any adjustments needed and answer questions. Mating is a critical process on farm – its important to get it right. So its one process where […]