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07/06/2009 08:51 AM
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Hello
There has been very little literature and understanding of Lean in the context of agriculture and farming apart from the work done by Food Chain Council in the UK. My suggestion would be whether it is appropriate to have a separate topic on Lean in Agriculture as it provides a different set of challenges altogether. This is due to variables such as the seasonal factor (where some produce are only once or twice a year such as rice), bulk production and processing and where in certain countries/areas mechanization is almost non-existent hence providing problems in handling and storage
Thanks!
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10/06/2009 05:10 PM
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Zainal, great idea. I'm in the ornamental floriculture industry and experience many of those same issues. Furthermore we have a huge issue with the enormous level of variation inherent in our products, which render principles like quality standards and takt time almost irrelevant (or at least irrelevant from a conventional manufacturing standpoint).
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10/07/2009 09:05 PM
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I work with a company that designs and produces agricultural equipment. They have successfully applied lean to manufacturing and now product development. I am sure they would love to contribute to a holistic lean agriculture discussion.
Brent
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11/13/2009 03:32 PM
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Fascinating topic, i´ve just studied some Lean in school and got a farming background.
As a thesis im thinking about doing some sort of work with a agriculture business. For me its important that the result could gain individual farmer.
Anyone got ideas about this such as interesting companies or problems/solutions about geographical differences together with different crops, animals and breeding legislate problems. Anyone who wants to contribute with insights on lean and agriculture and farming?
/Nick
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02/21/2011 03:39 PM
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Hi
Even it has been some time since you wrote, i would like to comment on Lean Farming.
For the last year I and some partners have tested and used some the Lean tools in dairy farms and in pig farms. I have just started lean projects in farms as well.
I find, that the tools and the thinking is usefull in full scale in farms. Things are called different names, but I am sure that the benefit is just the same.
When we spilt up the production, we have the farmer both as deliver and customer. That is a very useful thinking, that challenge his excuses. We have great succes with Kaizen meeting, 5S and Value Stream Mapping - and of cause the lean leadership.
Kind regards Susanne
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02/22/2011 09:27 AM
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Hello,
I'm a student and I'm currently completing my thesis on lean. I found your topic interesting and I'm wondering if you could tell me the challenges (the problems, the difficulties) you met when applying lean in agriculture and farming. And what about the advantages and the benefits?
Thank you very much
Virginie
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02/24/2011 12:18 PM
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Hello
Big questions :-)
Often farms have between 2-15 employees. They may not be used to spend money on consultancy and want to go alone to soon. You know, the Lean tools are simple, when you tell people about them, but difficult to implement. So the proces die for them. My challenge is to ensure, that the project are fully implementated.
The benefits is the same as other industries. They remove waste in time and money, they get more quality and higher performance. They get more engaged and involved employees if they succeed in the Lean Leadership.
I use a value stream mapping - combination between production and administration. It work very well.
Good luck.
Kind regards Susanne
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02/25/2011 12:51 PM
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Thanks a lot for your reply, it will be useful for me. May I ask you something else: before working on implementing lean tools, did you use readiness factors/indicators to see if the company (the farm, ...) is ready to start and how? If yes, what did you use as indicators? Value Stream Mapping only? I also find interesting to make a 5S and a DMAIC cycle. What do you think?
Thank you in advance
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03/02/2011 10:53 AM
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Hi
I do not use specific readiness factors, but we start with a meeting with the owners and later the employees to. We find the "burning platform" to start with.
I think that 5S is very useful. The kaizen board is very central for most of the tools. I use the PDCA cycle too.
Kind regards.
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03/03/2011 02:18 PM
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Thank you for your answer.
Did you meet some failures? I mean, do you think there is or there are key pre-requisites before implementing lean tools?
Thank you in advance
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03/04/2011 01:01 PM
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Hi
Yes, there are some:
the burning platform. The farmer must need this!
He must be open minded. This is new in many ways
the owner / manager must be persistent. There will be drop downs and he must keep going.
Kind regards
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03/07/2011 12:27 PM
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Thank you very much...
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03/14/2011 09:09 AM
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As a lean practitioner and a farmer, I must say that lean in agriculture is not about employing tools to realize some marginal efficiency gains. Will placing my tools on a shadow board in the barn help my family farm compete with large scale factory farms? I think not. Lean farming is about adopting a holistic long term philosophy around adding value to the sustainability of the people system of this planet. It's about adopting a set of values and principles to guide strategic decisions on everything from seed to feed to production methods to capital investments that ensures the least wasteful, most ethical and moral, most healthy for people and animals, least environmental impact, most sustainable approach possible. I have seen feed lots justified in the name of lean. It may appear to be more "productive". Animals living in their own muck are getting ill and are being pumped with meds, outbreaks are in the news weekly, people are getting sick. What is lean? Don't eat your peanut butter this week... what will it be next week? Don't do the people of this planet an injustice by implementing "lean" farming. Who is the ultimate customer? Certainly not wall street, think about it....
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02/24/2012 12:31 AM
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Hi Folks
I'm rapped to finally have found people talking about Lean in farming. I have recently completed a diploma of competitive manufacturing management after many years working in the FMCG industry. However I have now returned to dairy farming and am sure the tools I learned in the above can be readily converted to farming to help farmers improve their businesses. I have just produced an A3 plan for a farmer for a health issue he is experiencing with his cows. In particular quantifying the $ and animal losses and developing the counter measuers using an opportunity matrix, he said helped him enormously in tackling the problem. Positive outcomes will benefit his cows health and well being so I have to disagree with the above that Lean in farming is a negative move.
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02/24/2012 01:34 PM
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It's positive when you can get to the real root cause of problems and implement proper countermeasures. For example, let's say that your A3 finds that disease XYZ is causing the farmer $50K per year in lost opportunity and direct expenses.
You could then justify jumping to the solution of administering vaccine ABC to the entire herd at some frequency at a cost of $5K/year. You could claim a cost reduction, positive health, and other positive outcomes. Meanwhile, the real root cause still exists and is waiting to bite you again in the future and you are negatively impacting the entire food chain with another chemical and claiming positive results.
I was just saying, be cautious to maintain an view of the entire system when implementing change in ag. The entire field is certainly ripe with opportunity.
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03/02/2012 01:53 PM
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Hi All,
Some interesting thinking. I live in NZ, a big farming community. Our research has suggested no farm in NZ has applied Lean principles with the total focus being on technical improvements such as fertiliser and vaccinations. We have just started work with a large corporate farm (14 farms, 13,000 cows). We have just kicked of the current VSM and focusing on both the cow and pasture lifecycle as they are the two main inputs. Just wondering if anybody has done anything similar, it is fertile ground (excuse the pun) as NZ has 14 million cows.
Ian.
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03/02/2012 01:53 PM
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Good day...
Several years ago I made the tough decision to leave dairy farming. I applied Lean extensively with herd health, feeding, milking and general chores. Current state I am a Lean Leader for several manufacturing sites deploying and teaching. Not only did hte farming aspect teach me work ethic but it also taught me that tools from Lean are effective in dozens of applications & industries. Certainly miss the farming and happy to hear Lean being applied in a field that needs to have tools to help families and businesses thrive in tougher times.
Matt
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03/12/2012 12:09 PM
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Good day Ian, how are you? I can see some great synergies in Standard Work for Rotational Grazing as a starting point. You could also have each farm manager employ A3's for each of their herds as an assessment tool for Average Daily Gain, Survival Percentage, Calving Percentage and herd health expense per year. From that type of document you could derive performance.
There are very few farms that have a P&L, Metrics, and historical data on overall performance. It tends to be anecdotal information that is very spotty because of the work load and variation in uncontrollable issues. So base level standard work, A3, and benchmarking will free up time to create these missing components but also help farming become attainable to future generations.
In agriculture weather is always unpredictable but it doesn't mean your profits should be too.
Matt
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11/13/2012 01:56 PM
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Dear Ian,
As a prospective PhD Student on Lean Farming at Montado Alentejano (a Mediterranean forestry-grazing system), I look up at NZ farming organization.
Could you provide me some references of Institutes/organizations or researchers working with Lean Farming?
Thanks,
Luís
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11/14/2012 10:58 AM
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Hi Luis,
We have been working with a Dairy Farm, Synlait Farms for a year with some great results in terms of VSM, 5s etc. Dairy NZ has taken some interest in this programme to see how it might work in the wider environment. If you check out their websites and send me an email via i.lines@skills4work.org.nz i can send you more information.
Ian.
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