Opening new horizons: tour for learning lean management in Australian agricultural sector [27 – 31.07.2015]

Australia is known as a country with a highly developed agro-industrial complex. Australia's good geographical location and reasonable government have made it one of the world leaders in exporting cattle, meat, milk and other agricultural products. The participants of our tour had an opportunity to learn from the companies thanks to which the country stays at top positions in the sphere and find out about Australian specific features of lean management.

agro_australia_tour

Organizer: FastForward

Vative

The first visit took place at Vative, a company which consults enterprises on implementation of lean management. We were shown a brief presentation about the basics of lean production and how it can be introduced at non-manufacturing companies.

The managerial board of Vative maintains productivity of its employees, teamwork and mutual assistance between the staff members. For example, the company has a list of necessary working skills and the employees having such skills or capable of teaching them. Thus, if you, say, need help in preparing a project, you can find a colleague competent enough to assist or train you. Moreover, the company has a wall "Thanksgiving Tree". At the beginning of a month it has only a leafless trunk but as the month proceeds, employees hang their thanks on leafs for their colleagues' contribution.

Each employee can work at no more than three projects at a time. To manage time reasonably, each has a three-colour chart above the workplace. The first project is placed on green, the second on yellow and the third on red. If an employee has too many projects, he can easily redirect one of them to his colleague who has less.

 

Graincorp

Then the group went to the port terminal of Graincorp – the leader in Australian agrobusiness. The main mission of the company is maintaining connection between the consumer and the manufacturer. Graincorp's business splits into two major directions – grain storage and on-selling. In other words, Graincorp does not grow its own grain but cooperates with farmers and other companies. They have a number of grain elevators around all eastern and south-eastern territory of Australia.

The terminal we visited is situated at Geelong not far from Melbourne. This is one of the company's terminals which sends grain for export. The group had a brilliant opportunity to acquaint themselves with a range of technological solutions employed by the company while working with cargo delivery. For example, Graincorp has developed its own software allowing to register and follow each lorry coming with a delivery. A farmer, for instance, is given a personal login during signing up in the system. With its help he can log in and book himself the time of cargo delivery. The company has a special IPhone application for such purposes. This is very convenient, since you can check at any moment whether there is room in the elevator, book storage space or find out what kind of grain is stored there.

Graincorp has managed to optimise the whole logistic process. There are no huge lines of trucks at the delivery. The secret is that the hourly number of arriving trucks with grain is limited to 12. And only 2 kinds of grain (say, wheat and corn) are assigned to each hour and may be received at the same time. In case a truck is late and everything is booked in the system nobody is going to wait for it: you have to register again and wait for your turn.

Besides, all grain is tested after arrival, still being in a truck. The company has a vacuum sample taking system, which has made it possible to conduct a test within 8 minutes. The main criteria checked are humidity, possible damage, presence of parasites, the sort of grain, etc.

Apart from the terminal, we were also able to visit Graincorp's Sydney office, where the group learned about the company's logistic strategy development and comprehensive process management optimisation at the elevators. 

australia

Elders

The next point in the group's roadmap was to visit Elders, a company which deals with growing and selling cattle, such as cows. We visited the main company's office in Melbourne. It is interesting that Elders has no farms of its own. They keep their cattle at someone else's farms and pay the owners for it – a good example of sustainable farming and resource management.

To keep record of its cattle the company uses a crm-like system. Each cow at Elders has its own registration card in the system, where all information about the animal is saved: where and when the cow was born, which vaccines were made, when an ox was castrated, what the results of the latest weighing are, etc. Each cow also has a name-plate with its own number and a microchip which allows to follow the cow's location, as well as to read the information from it and immediately find the animal in the system.

As a rule, most of the company's animals are exported, but some of them are sent directly to butcheries. At the same time Elders undertakes to assist the importing companies for a long time after a purchase. Also Elders gives a 30 days' guarantee for each sold animal and a customer can choose cows to buy on his own. Though it is a bit difficult to do if you want to buy more than 50 cows. In most cases, the animals are delivered on ships, sometimes on airplanes.

The company strictly follows the principles of lean management – even manure from the farms is later sold as a fertilizer.

 

Meat&Livestock Australia

Later on the group went to the office of Meat&Livestock Australia. It is a non-profitable organisation whose main aim is to promote Australia as a meat exporter on the global market. The company strongly cooperates with the country's government and with world's meat manufacturers. Meat & Livestock functions owing to farmers and member companies (over 50 thousand at present). Each association member pays the company $5 for each sold animal.

A company's manager briefly outlined the features of Australian agricultural sector and their organisation's activity as a part of it. We found out that Australia ranked third in the world in the export of beef after Brazil and India. We were shown a presentation with an overview of the Australian beef market in the past 30 years. For example, 2014 was a record year for the number of animals sold – 1.2 million for export and 9.2 million to butcheries.

agro_australia

 

Australia has long been at the leading position in the world of agribusiness. A number of geographical and climatic advantages over other countries play an important role here. Firstly, Australia's climate is very favorable for breeding of animals. The winter is usually warm and the summers are not too hot, especially in the east and southeast of the country, where the major farming and industrial enterprises for breeding cows are situated. The second factor is Australia's isolation from the other countries, allowing it to avoid a number of diseases, such as anthrax. It is noteworthy that the agricultural sector is closely controlled by the state. Each cow has to be in the State Register. It helps to collect statistics and monitor the situation on the market as a whole. All processes are strictly documented, ranging from the birth of a calf, to delivery of finished products on supermarket shelves. Each product can leave the factory only after careful state verification and to receiving a permission.

At the end of the meeting a surprise was waiting for us – a corporate chef of Meat & Livesto ck held a special workshop on preparing steaks and burgers from the Australian Beef – so that the group had an opportunity to enjoy the final product of the agricultural sector.

agro_australia

Visit to a farm

The next visit was no less exciting – we went to one of the farms with about 2 thousand cows – all are the cows of Elders. We were met by the land owner – a farmer in the sixth generation. He told us that only 2 people work on the farm and, if necessary, they hire more people, but not on a permanent basis. The biggest discovery on this farm were two trained border collies. Given a command, these two cuties got together and built a herd of 200 cows in 5 minutes.

Here we were shown a museum where we saw various items of farming collected over the past hundred years – rakes, plows, sheep shearing scissors, and the like. Also we saw the corrals, where the animals are taken for pondering, regular vaccination or before sending them to the feedlots. A feedlot is a place where cows weighing about 450 kg are brought and fed special feeds before being sent to the butchery or for export. On feedlots cows live outdoors all the time. As the weather conditions allow, there are only small roofed spots in their corrals and there is no need in firm walls.  

agro_australia

 

Speaking about feed, Elders is very concerned about proper nutrition for its animals. They only use liquid feed supplements. A feed is selected depending on the season – wheat, barley, oats, grain, cotton, almonds or orange peel, which are purchased in the factories for the production of juices. In the preparation of compound feed Elders uses its own technology. Grain is processed with steam, milled and compressed. Thus, the feed remains moist, due to which it retains a large amount of nutrients that are lost during normal grinding. These feeds allow cows to gain weight 20% faster.

On Elders feedlots there are cows of different breeds. Both "standard" Angus cows (for marbled beef) and cows of the expensive Japanese Wagyu breed, which is exported, are grown.         

Entertainment

Our tour to Australia included, as always, an entertainment program – sightseeing tours in Melbourne and Sydney have left no participant indifferent. It was worth all efforts to see the world-famous Sydney opera or Melbourne Tower "Eureka." The participants shared their experiences, ideas and exchanged contacts.                       

Join FastForward management tours and get a unique experience from industry leaders!