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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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