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SmartPork Monitor Farm programme delivers results
Thursday, 4 May 2023
If you are a pig farmer, you know that managing your business can be challenging. What if you were told there is a way to increase efficiency and quality without making major changes?
That's where the SmartPork Monitor Farm programme comes in. Its goal is to inspire pig farmers to apply Lean management principles to their businesses and reap the benefits.
Our Knowledge Exchange team has been working with Neil Fedden and David Crowfoot of Fedden USP for the last two years to deliver the SmartPork Monitor Farm programme to several pig producers, with impressive results.
The Lean management methodology focuses on eliminating wasted resources such as time, money, and effort. By making small and simple modifications in daily routines, farmers can achieve small incremental gains over time.
The programme teaches circular processes such as the use of process maps, waste walks and string diagrams, and value propositions. For example, waste walks reveal the different walking and transportation routes on a farm, helping farmers identify areas where waste occurs and how it can be reduced.
Process mapping involves taking a wider view of the farm and figuring out where time or processes can be replaced or reduced to achieve greater efficiency.
Although some of these techniques lead to 1% increments, they add up over time. One farmer found success by putting up shadow boards for tool management, which helped identify missing tools and reduced maintenance costs and time waiting for things to be fixed.
In March, we hosted a workshop to celebrate the monitor farmers’ achievements (attendees pictured right), as they have made over £510K in combined savings from the programme.
Examples of the step-by-step processes farmers undertook as they implemented Lean management techniques on their farms and their results were shared with the industry via a webinar, which you can watch on our YouTube channel.
So, if you're a pig farmer looking to increase efficiency and quality in your business, the SmartPork Monitor Farm programme might just be the solution you've been searching for.
Back row: Andrew Field, Tony Bayles, David Childerhouse, James Turner, David Crowfoot
Front row: Andrew Palmer, Pat Loten, Neil Fedden, Charlie Thompson