How many piglets can your farm produce?
Pig farmers know that animal performance data by itself does not offer a true picture of farm production. In order to make the best business decisions, we need to go further and understand production in a global way, diverting the focus from isolated processes and paying special attention to the installed capacity or what Agriness P+1 Method calls the Maximum Productive Potential of a farm.
The production capacity of a farm is calculated taking into account aspects regarding animal performance and economy. The improvements that are intended to make the most of this capacity should focus on one of the most important stages of the business: delivering animals.
To better understand the concept of Maximum Productive Potential, we can compare a farm to a restaurant. Imagine a restaurant that has 100 4-seater tables, which operates 5 days a week only at lunchtime. Customers spend on average R$100.00 per table or R$ 25.00 per person. To keep it going, enough cooks and waiters have been hired to serve 400 customers a day.
Labor and overhead costs are fixed regardless of the number of people served daily. In order to be profitable, the restaurant must serve 400 people at lunch time. If only 350 people are served, the idle capacity will have a negative impact on profit. If you manage to serve 100 4-seater tables for five days a week, this means the maximum productive potential is 104,000 customers per year. Considering the average expenditure per person, the restaurant expected revenue is R$ 2.6 million.
Calculate how many piglets a farm is able to produce
The same principle can be applied to a pig farm. Let´s consider, for instance, a farm with 520 sows. If the genetic potential allows weaning 30 piglets per sow per year, the farm installed capacity should produce 15,600 piglets per year. If only 15,000 piglets are delivered, this means the farm fell 600 piglets short of reaching its potential.
Focus on delivery of animal production
When we assess the maximum capacity to deliver we are able to understand better the farm’s overall objective. If we know the annual productive capacity, it is easier to split this goal into monthly and weekly deliveries. If these goals are not met, we need to make a more thorough analysis of animal performance data to identify where the problem lies.
Knowing the farm´s maximum productive potential makes the staff aware of current production, as well as expected deliveries on an annual, monthly and weekly basis. Besides, the staff must be trained to clearly understand this concept, so that everyone works together to improve the results.
You may have the necessary information to calculate the maximum productive potential of your farm. Take advantage and make the free download of the Production Map, the visual management tool of Agriness Method P+1, which allows in a didactic and practical way to see the weekly deliveries of each production stage and to follow up your annual goal in terms of delivery of animal production.
