Using lean to take agriculture to the next level in Denmark

Many farmers already use benchmarking and work with key performance indicators (KPIs) to refine and continuously improve their farming processes. So what can lean do for these farmers who already perform at a high level? It can take farming operations to the next level. For me, lean works like an extra gear.

When you think you have reached high performance, lean helps you find unexpected waste and remove it from your processes. It helps you find a smarter way and opens up new possibilities. The trick is to remember that it is all about making small improvements for your customer. But what is “value” for the “customer” in farming?

The farmer thinks of the customer as the person who buys food at the supermarket. He thinks the food industry has direct contact with the customer. Innovation (at least in farming) comes when the farmer starts to break the production processes down into small pieces and to see that he is both the customer and the producer/creator of goods and services in his own business. Then it makes sense to make improvements for the customer. For example, I was recently the lean mentor and lead coordinator for a dairy farmer in his heifer-rearing process. They were celebrating a tremendous result: a 0% mortality rate for the calves. They were skeptical when we started making a value stream map because they were convinced there was no way to make improvements, there was no need for improvements.

When I asked them to define value for the customer, they took a closer look at the calves' weight. They saw that the customer (the “veal production” line) required the calves to grow to 100 kg by eight weeks of age. But they never weighed them. They were focusing only on the mortality rate. So looking at the process from the customer's point of view was an eye-opener.

They also discovered that the veal production process did not need so many calves. They were pushing all the calves from the dairy operation because they were used to doing so. They were used to “push production” out of tradition, but they are now doing “pull production” by sorting the calves early in the production line and with more careful planning.

That was certainly a great mentoring moment for me, but what about the other kinds of waste on the farm? Waste is easy to see when there is mold in the silage or corn seeds sprouting in a field after harvest. When that happens, the farmer usually thinks his workers are doing a poor job and simply asks them to do a better job. As if it were that easy.

I once talked with a group of farmers about waste. One person talked about how someone else had broken a gate with the tractor. Normally, this would prompt laughter and teasing, but what happened was interesting – this story started a conversation about how this event happened in the first place and how they could improve their work. Within a few minutes, the guys began discussing a large number of countermeasures: stripes on the floor of the area, more training sessions, fixing a pothole, etc. After more careful consideration and really looking at the root cause of the problem, they decided to start improving the general conditions for faster and safer driving.

When you start to think and work systematically with lean (instead of just improvising), looking for waste becomes fun. You see opportunities for improvement everywhere. It becomes a kind of treasure hunt, and nobody points fingers at the workers or at one another. Suddenly, people start working together to take their work to the next level.

It is these small changes in approach and perspective that have been most useful to me in lean. Working with lean principles and tools motivates people to be better and creates a new level of engagement. The meeting in front of the whiteboard (yes, even for farmers!) or kaizen meeting is an example of this. At first, I noticed that farmers did not see the purpose of such meetings and felt uncomfortable in front of the whiteboard. Now, with my team, everyone shows up looking to solve problems and thinks about new possibilities.

I am starting to collect lean farming stories on my blog http://www.leanfarming.eu. I would love to hear your opinions.