There are various forms of waste.  Within Lean management eight areas of waste have been identified as follows, they can be remembered by the acronym DOWNTIME:

1. Defects: sick animals, poor communication, poor feed quality, lameness, etc.

2. Overproduction: more milk produced than can be sold for the best price, e.g. B milk production, producing more heifers than needed, over producing forage, (not an issue for 2018).

3. Waiting: either waiting for other members of the team to help with a job or waiting for a piece of equipment to come free to do a task – poor communication and planning.

4. Used talent: not making use of the skills and talents your team may have.

5. Transportation: moving feed or slurry from one site to another or hauling long distances as ground cannot be secured locally.  Stock kept on multiple sites.  Wrong size of machine for the job.

6. Inventory: carrying excess stock, which ties up working capital.

7. Motion: no standard operating procedures in place, wrong tool for the job or tool missing.

8. Extra Processing: over cleaning, treating farm animals like pets, producing a product that is higher quality than required by the customer, e.g. high butterfat milk on a liquid milk contract.

Working through all of your farm processes with this list of wastes at hand will help you streamline your business, reduce waste and increase profits.

To discuss how you can use this process to reduce waste in your business, contact Phil at pcooper@fcgagric.com