Michael McKeon discusses how the principles of ‘lean thinking’ can help identify inefficiencies and enhance productivity in pig production.
When the sector is in financial difficulties the day-to-day priorities are simply to keep the wheels turning. There usually isn’t an availability of labour, capital or headspace to analyse or substantially change the way your unit is operating. Thankfully, we are currently in better times and therefore, have an opportunity to re-assess the way we do things! We often look at our pig production through the lens of hitting certain targets or KPI’s. However, an alternative way to look at your business is to assess how ‘lean’ it is.
‘Lean practice’ stipulates that every business has 8 major waste areas and if some of these can be tackled, the business will become much more efficient, and therefore hopefully more profitable.
The eight wastes
An initial scan of these and one might think they aren’t really relevant to pig production, but that assumption would be incorrect. The list below teases-out some of the possible wastes in your production system.
1. Excess Inventory
An example of excess inventory is having a soya oil tank that is continually topped-up and never runs empty. While this might sound like an ideal situation unfortunately if it never runs empty then it is never cleaned. This results in a build-up of rancid sludge in the bottom of the tank. This sludge will cause fresh oil to go rancid much quicker – similar to adding fresh milk into a jug of sour milk. Rancid oil can severely reduce the level of Vitamin E available to the pig.
2. Non-Utilised Talent
Have you staff that have the capability to do much more if they got some training? Many staff may have qualifications from abroad that may not be recognised here but this shows the potential they have to be re-trained. Some owners are afraid if they develop staff they may then leave, but as Henry Ford said “the only thing worse than training staff and having them leave, is not training them and having them stay”. The more we know about something, the more interest we will have in it.
3. Overproduction
Do you sell pigs or pigmeat? If you sell pigs then you want as many pigs going through the unit as possible. If you sell pigmeat, then you want to produce the maximum volume of pigmeat as efficiently as possible. You can do one or the other, but you can’t do both! Setting a weekly service target based on your sow herd size, is not the optimum way to sell pigmeat! Instead decide on your optimum sale weight, measure all your finisher pens, calculate the optimum space required per finisher, calculate the finisher places available & weekly output. Then calculate the optimum sow services / week.
- Finisher space = 5,767 m2 / ave. space per finisher (0.89m2) = 6,480 finisher spaces
- Optimum sale wt. =120kg; weight gain = 120-40kg = 80 kg; 80kg gain @1,050 ADG = 76 days required
- 76 days = 11 weeks; 6,480 spaces / 11 weeks = 589 finishers/week, 589 * 1.04 = 612 weaned/week
- 612 weaned / week @ 14 weaned/litter = 44 farrowings; 44 farrowings @ 90% = 49 services/week
4. Extra processing
Are you feeding a weaner diet for too long? Is your finisher diet too high in energy leading to excess fat at sale? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you are over-processing your pigs. Putting in an extra feed bin and auger line could give you a financial payback within 12 months.
5. Waiting
Are you waiting for space because there are some ‘half-full’ dry sow or finisher pens? Would it pay to sell cull sows each week even if the load isn’t full, or sell finisher ‘stragglers’ lighter, rather than wait for the half-full pens to empty?
6. Resources
Are you doing something that is using resources with very little payback? A common example of this is using labour for a task with little return. Are you still grading all your pigs at weaning instead of just the lightest 10%? Are you sexing at weaning but not using different feeding regimes? Are you weighing a whole week of weaners at transfer instead of weighing a representative sample? Could the time and labour employed in these tasks be used more productively elsewhere? Just because we have always done it, doesn’t mean we should always do it!
7. Defects
Are some of the products (pigs) we are producing defective? Is our condemnation rate high, and if so, can we pin-point the main reason? Are we getting sow NIPS (not in pig) at day 80? Each day 80 NIP = 4 regular repeats! Why are they happening and why are they not picked up earlier? Can we reduce the level of ear necrosis on the unit?
8. Motion
As we all know pig units generally contain large buildings with only pedestrian access. While walking may be good for your health, it’s not good for the bottom-line. Again, to quote Henry Ford, ‘every step is a wasted second’. On recent pig unit visits, I’ve asked the staff to share their daily step counts from their smartphones. Distances have ranged from 15,000 to 25,000 steps per day which according to Henry ford would equate to five hours! While this is probably over-estimating the time involved, and some motion is actually essential working, e.g. moving pigs etc. none-the-less it illustrates that motion is an unseen waste. The following may reduce unwanted motion; move office to centre of unit, numerous ‘equipment hub’ locations, vaccine and AI fridge near service house, every pig corridor has a driving boards rack, extra pig loading ramps.
Reducing waste will improve efficiency! Consider discussing some of the 8 types of waste at your next staff meeting. If you’re not holding regular staff meetings, that might be your first ‘wasted opportunity’ to address!