SwineIT Steve Pollmann Nov 17 2020
How to effectively apply benchmark in pig production
benchmarking = where you are relative to the industry
to improve, we need to know what the competition is doing
it’s a reality check
how are we doing v. industry as well as the biology of the pig
the 2 big ones cost of production & profitability
live hog production is a throughput business
sow farms key metric: weekly pigs produced; that is, a consistent output of high quality weaned pig each week. Consistent throughput means that PSY is not a good metric to measure business success.
wean2fin: biggest single indicator is w2f livability; if it’s good, everything else comes along. Livability means % pigs placed that go to market, it’s a good proxy for health status
caloric efficiency is a bit of a blur because a lot of the caloric values are not necessarily aligned with the benchmarking systems
I like to keep it simple “if I can keep the pigs living and growing fast then feed efficiency or caloric efficiency are just outcomes. There are so many adjustments you need to make for apples to apples comparison e.g. start weight, days on feed, caloric density of the diet, slaughter weights, pellet v meal, ractopamine or not; to do a good benchmark on feed efficiency is challenging
stretch goals move benchmarking from an academic approach to a business activity. “this is where we’re at, this is where we need to be”, then establish values on the key metrics we need to improve. Once you do that, then you can put together the tactics to get it done
You need to be realistic e.g. if your goal is a 3% w2f mortality and you’re running 8%, that 3% is not a realistic target so stretch goal should be realistic and attainable. If internal benchmarking shows that, for example, the Top25% mortality is 4.5% then why can’t I get the rest of my system to that level?
The fundamental definition of improvement is to decrease variation, when you decrease variation you will generally see improvement. Example: Something he saw, 4 closeouts represented 75% of the variation in the system so you know where to work.
Should you assume expected genetic improvement? We know we will get 1-3% annual improvement due to continuously improving genetics (depending on the parameter) so at the commercial level you should be getting that level of continuous improvement otherwise you’re getting further behind.
One of the real goals is comparing rate of biological improvement
sow farms typically 2-3% annual improvement in PSY.
โ๐ ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ง๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ด๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ข๐ช๐ฏ๐ข๐ฃ๐ช๐ญ๐ช๐ต๐บ ๐ข๐ด ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ข๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ต๐ช๐ฏ๐ถ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฃ๐ฆ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ด๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ด๐ด. ๐๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฃ๐ฆ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ด๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ด๐ด ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐จ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฃ๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฌ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐บ. ๐๐ฐ ๐ฅ๐ฐ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐จ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฃ๐ฆ ๐ด๐ถ๐ค๐ค๐ฆ๐ด๐ด๐ง๐ถ๐ญ ๐ข๐ต ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ถ๐ค๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐ฆ๐ง๐ง๐ช๐ค๐ช๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐บ.โ
In 2020, there’s a lot of noise in our data sets so maybe set 2020 aside and say it’s an outlier?
Benchmarking helps you define what success can be, it’s easy to become complacent, if you continue to only hit averages it means you won’t be world class; strive to be in the top 25% in each KPI.
biology v. actual still far apart, maybe 25-30% difference so a long way to go.
You really want to look at lead indicators; performance results are outcomes of what’s happened over the past 6 months so leading indicators are what’s happening weekly with mortality or treatments or market weights then easy to get behind; when the lead indicators get better, the closeout results will come along; another lead indicator is feed outage, define what it is for your system, measure how often, reduce it and performance gets better. His definition “anytime I walk in a barn and see an empty feeder, I have a feed outage” doesn’t matter if it’s 5min, 10 min, or 3 hours, it’s still a feed outage.
Brain in the Barn 