Reliability, capacity and our farm equipment effectiveness When I first came to farming 10 years ago from manufacturing environments where reliability and OEE are inherent measures and critical to good operational performance, I was astounded that this was not really considered at all. So what is this key metric? OEE stands for overall equipment effectiveness […]

Cost Cost Cost With milk prices unpredictable, inflation and interest rates going up and up in this part of the world, and all input costs increasing constantly, managing cost within your farm business well is absolutely crucial. Any waste allowed in your business is just adding to more cost. We did a quick analysis of […]

An example of a farm that is not Lean…. Check this photo out of a farm I drove past last year……. what is your impression of this farm business? Does your farm look like this? Last week I had the opportunity to run some workshops with sheep and beef farmers on the South Island and […]

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, […]