How far can you get? Our experience in the field shows that most pig producers are still not able to answer this question, and unfortunately most Brazilian pig farmers do not work with well-defined goals. To change this scenario, we invite you to build a map for your business, determining the departure and the arrival points, as well as the actions that should be taken along the way.
The first step is to identify, based on good-quality information, your current production status. Analyze the production indicators and use this diagnosis to evaluate which are the opportunities for improving performance.
Once you defined your departure point, establish an annual production goal. This means that in the beginning of each year, you need to define a goal to achieve. This goal will affect all indicators identified in the first step. For instance, if the goal is to deliver 15,600 piglets per year, with a productivity of 30 weaned piglets per sow per year, you will know that you will need at least 520 productive sows. After this is defined – and duly recorded in your production map – you will need to divide the annual goal into monthly deliveries, and then into weekly deliveries.
These goals must be based both on your production potential and on the resources available to achieve them, including management practices, labor, and facilities. To aid this process, you can compare your farm’s performance against that obtained by farms with similar infrastructure. This is known as benchmarking, and you can use the database Agriness Top Pig Producers to determine achievable goals.
Engagement
In addition of guiding your management process, your team will be stimulated when these goals are presented. Therefore, the goals should be discussed with all workers and sectors involved in production. It is essential to show that the work of each employee influences the final results. The weekly meetings are excellent opportunities to reinforce this.
For instance, do the employees that work in the farrowing unit clearly know how many farrowings are needed each week or how many piglets need to be weaned weekly to achieve the annual production goal? What is the maximum acceptable mortality rate? This is why the annual and monthly goals need to be established on weekly basis. In addition of knowing how to perform their activities, each worker must have a clear understanding why they need to do them.
Close attention
After defining the delivery goal, you need to identify the challenges you and team need to overcome to achieve them. First, you have to find why the current situation is different from your goal. What do you need to change to direct the farm processes towards the defined goals?
Based on the responses to these and other questions, you will be able to establish the best route to your destination. Once you have collected the farm’s data, benchmarked your data against other farmers, defined your goals, and identified the critical points, you are ready to start. Get to work!
What about you? Do you already use goals for your operation?
