What We Do

Dairy Lean Manager

Dairy Lean Manager is a new service available from The Dairy Group. This is a fresh approach to managing the dairy business and to increase profit by maximizing value and eliminating waste. Lean Management was developed in the car industry by Toyota and is widely used in other industries. There are 6 consultants (including Ian Powell) in the UK who have achieved a qualification in dairy lean management from Reaseheath College supported by DairyCo. With falling milk prices there has never been a better time to look at the dairy business in a new way. The dairy farm business is relatively complex with many processes impacting on farm profit. Dairy lean management is a systematic approach to improving the production process and profit.

What is Dairy Lean Manager?

Dairy Lean Manager provides a support programme to implement lean management for a dairy business. The consultant acts as a mentor to help the leader of the business to implement lean management. Clearly, this will only be effective where the business leader will commit to management changes and a disciplined approach to running the business.

How does it work?

There are a number of steps:

  1. Identify the processes to be managed for value creation through milk production.

  2. Measure the performance of each process & the overall performance of the dairy system. Identify value streams and waste.

  3. Address the root causes of underperformance and waste.

  4. Define each process so that performance is maximised.

  5. Standardise the process to enable staff to achieve consistently high performance levels.

  6. Sustain the lean operations of the processes through lean management systems including performance monitoring, accountability & continuous improvement.

Whilst sounding very formal our approach is to work with the business over a period of one to two years to help implement lean management. The programme develops over time, with a focus on the key issues in the dairy calendar. The starting point is to review the management information available and to see how this can be developed and used without duplication. Where information is not available then to put in place simple systems to provide the information that is needed.

What are the benefits?

The key benefit is investing in you as a business leader and specifically to increase and sustain profit and to operate flexibly to changing circumstances.

E-Mail - enquiries@thedairygroup.co.uk

Tel - 01823 444488

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