Lean on our Farm
Follow our farm's lean journey, see what we are doing, and learn about how lean thinking and tools can help your farming business. Lean can help every type of farmer and grower. We have started our 2 Minute LeanFarm videos to give farmers a practical sense of some of the lean tools and principles and how to apply them. These are done randomly based on what we are doing on our farm. Watch our videos or read our blog posts below to learn more.
Our Videos
Our Blog
How much “motion” waste do you do each day on farm?
Over the last few weeks we have been doing some good old fashioned time and motion studies using 21st century apps. We are experimenting with this to understand where our time is spent and how much non value added “motion” we are doing every day. Tracking your movement on farm during your day is an […]
Data on Farm – you’ve got to love it!
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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