Creating a Time and Labour Efficient Farm

Clear, simple systems to help you manage tasks and people on your farm can help with business efficiency and productivity.

An aspect that is commonly spoken about in the dairy industry is the cost and efficiency of labour, not to mention availability, of skilled labour.

In NSW labour total costs (paid and owner operator or imputed labour) on average, make up around 25% of farm operating costs according to our NSW DFMP data. This represents a cost of around $2.10/kgMS. In terms of efficiency, we are looking at, on average around just under 40,000kgMS/FTE. Obviously, there are farms that are much more efficient than this and those that are less efficient. And there are many factors that drive this.

Today my guest is James McRae, a farmer who has adopted a system or style of management on his farm that helps him address time and resource efficiency. It is called Lean Management.  

Useful resources related to this podcast:

Raelands Farm Facebook page

2 Second Lean (Paul Akers)

GembaDocs app - for creating SOP’s & Kanban cards. It saves a lot of time! 

YouTube:

AME - Yellotools tour

Upflip - Fastcap pt  1

Upflip - Fastcap pt 2

Books:

The Lean Dairy Farm - Jana & Mat Hocken

Lean in Agriculture - Nielsen & Pejstrup 

2 Second Lean - Paul Akers

The Toyota Way - Jeffrey Liker 

This podcast is an initiative of the NSW DPI Dairy Business Advisory Unit

It is brought to you in partnership the Hunter Local Land Services

Please share this podcast with your fellow farmers and colleagues and feel free to contact us with suggestions or comments via this email address thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com

Further NSW DPI Dairy channels to follow and subscribe to include;

NSW DPI Dairy Facebook page

DPI Intensive Livestock Twitter feed

NSW DPI Dairy Newsletter

Transcript

Produced by Video Lift

The information discussed in this podcast are for informative and educational purposes only and do not constitute advice. 

Transcript

The Business of Dairy 

Season 2, Episode #2 Transcript – “Creating a Time and Labour Efficient Farm”

Sheena Carter: Welcome to the Business of Dairy Podcast. I'm Sheena Carter, Development Officer with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Dairy Team. Clear simple systems to help you manage tasks and people in your farm can help with business efficiency and productivity. An aspect that is commonly spoken about in the dairy industry is the cost and efficiency of labour, not to mention availability of skilled labour. In New South Wales, total labour costs, paid and owner-operated –  or imputed labour, on average make up around 25% of farm operating costs, according to our New South Wales Farm Monitor data. 

In terms of labour efficiency, we're looking at, on average, around just under 40,000 kilos of milk solids per full time equivalent labour unit. Obviously there are farms that are much more efficient than this and those that are less efficient and there are many factors that drive this. Today my guest is James McRae, a farmer who has adopted a system or style of management on his farm that helps him address time, labour and resource efficiency. It's called Lean management. Okay. Welcome to the Business of Dairy Podcast. 

James McRae: Yeah, thanks very much for having me, Sheena. It's great to be here. 

Sheena Carter: Lovely. Look, I've known you and your wife, Lauren for a number of years now, and I'm a big fan of your Raelands Facebook page. I'm sure we'll have others who are listening who follow you on Facebook as well. But you were also a New South Wales Focus Farm a number of years ago, so there'll be quite a few in the industry who are familiar with your farm. But can you give me a bit of a brief description about your business for our broader audience?

James McRae: Yeah, no worries Sheena. So, Raelands farm is run by my dad, Chris and I as a 50/50 partnership. Lauren, my wife, is a graphic designer and she works from home, too. So she's absolutely flat out at the moment, so doesn’t get out on the farm as much as she’d probably like to. We've got two young kids, Hannah, who's five and Roy, who’s three and that’s sort of who’s on the farm. The farm is under 184 hectares. Top 70 hectares is forest and rainforest and sort of cliff face and that sort of thing. And we've actually just entered into a biodiversity stewardship agreement with the BCT, the Government trust, who actually generate biodiversity credits for that 70 hectares, which is all complete now. It's been about a four and a half year project so it’s really a relief to get that finally done. So we'll start to market that in the next, probably year or two – those biodiversity credits to larger corporations. So the next 70 hectares is sort of that undulating sort of open woodland country and then down to the milking platform, which is around that 42 hectares or so. So running a permanent pasture type system. On the river flats we've got the prairie grass, chicory, lucerne, clovers, sort of a bit of a pasture mix. On some of the heavier country it's the kikuyu, clover, chicory permanent pasture base with ryegrass intersown for winter feed. So we run Holsteins here and a few Aussie Reds using genomic testing program and it's a self-replacing herd. So on that 42 hectares, we run all our calves and heifers and we aim to sell 10-12 heifers a year and we've just started that this year, which has been really fun to do. 

Yeah, so we sort of try to keep it fairly simple under that pasture-based system and then a bit of grain in the bale and silage and hay if we haven't made enough silage through the winter time. The other thing is that I’m a trainer and assessor at Tocal College, so I've trained and assessed the diploma of AG Business subjects there externally from home. So we've got a few different balls in the air, so I guess that’s where Lean comes in so that we can run the farm productively, but also we can manage some of these other off-farm income streams that can add value too. 

Sheena Carter: Yes, Fantastic. And you are certainly in a beautiful part of the world. I guess, what would we would say, it's about an hour west of Taree on the mid-coast region of New South Wales, and it's a stunning part of the world, probably a little bit damper than you'd like at the moment, but that seems to be unfortunately the situation on the coast. So, yes, you just touched on… you've adopted a style or a philosophy in your business called Lean. So, not everyone's necessarily going to be familiar with Lean. Can you tell us what is it about exactly and how it originated and, you know, expand on why you've adopted it? 

James McRae: Yeah, sure. So Lean is actually… it was adopted by Toyota back in the 1950s after the war and there was a real resource scarcity in Japan. So Toyota developed a system – they actually went to America, a lot of the executives – and learnt from Henry Ford. And then they came back to Japan and they adapted the Ford system into something that’d fit with their resource scarcity to make them a lot more efficient and competitive in the marketplace. 

And from that was developed, the Toyota production system, which is now what we call, what a lot of people call, Lean. In the late eighties some fellows called John Krafcik, Jim Womack and Daniel Jones wrote a book called The Machine That Changed the World and that’s when they introduced Lean as a concept. So its foundations are really from Toyota and the Toyota production system, but Lean, given that term, is more appealing to other industries too. It’s directly relevant to any business or industry that provides a service or product to a customer, basically.

The fundamental concepts of Lean are creating value for the customer through eliminating waste and using continuous improvement, and that's really the fundamentals of it. I suppose that can be broken down further into say, values. So, what is value within our business? So, value to our customer. And dairy farmers are fairly complex as we know, so our customers within dairy farming, or the animals and people that we're providing a service to, have certain values and we need to understand those values and address those values, improve on those values, to build a sustainable business. So anything that differs from those values is essentially waste. 

Sheena Carter: Right. And what's an example of some of the values and the customers in the business? 

James McRae: So internal to the business, we've got cows, our heifers, calves, our staff members, maybe family members that are relying on us being at home at a reasonable time in the evening. We've got different values for these different items that are sort of within our business. So, let's take our calves, they have certain standards that we're trying to meet in values like animal handling, low stress, adequate nutrition and feed. 

So anytime we're addressing those values and working on those values, it's good for the business. Anything that differs from that is wasteful. The same with having, let's say we have staff that keep getting home to the family late every second day, sort of thing, that's probably not going to be a really good value for them or their family, is it? Their values are going to be finishing in a reasonable time, being treated well at work and some of those sort of basic fundamentals. But that's up to the farm team to work out what values are within that business and that are required of the different segments within the business. 

I suppose then that leads on to the external customers of the business and in dairy farming that's going to be the milk processor that we provide our milk to and also the end consumer who is actually consuming our product, and they will have different values too. So, the milk processor will have values around minimum standards for milk, so, components, maybe minimum litreage supplied as part of contract, quality, those sort of things. And farmers, I think, generally are fairly on top of those sort of requirements. And then we've got the final consumer who has maybe a slightly different set of values that they view a farmer providing to them. Are you looking after the environment? It could be having cows on grass, it could be treating cows well, low stress handling sort of stuff. So all services or customers that we have within and outside of the business will have a set of values that they require of us. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, so it's quite logical. It's just putting a couple of names or titles to different aspects of the business that people are really dealing with, well, hopefully, you know, all the time, but it's just sort of categorising them and structuring things around that. 

James McRae: That’s right, and really working towards meeting those values. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, and so what piqued your interest or how did you get interested in Lean and why did you decide it was for you? 

James McRae: I actually first learned about Lean at uni, I think it's about 12-13 years ago. I had a really forward thinking lecturer who introduced us to holistic thinking and we covered some Lean Six Sigma sort of basics. And from then I sort of forgot about it and went and continued study and travel and that sort of thing. And then I came back to the farm and I was actually reading a couple of New Zealand dairy mags and Lean was an article that came up and I sort of remembered learning that at uni and I thought, well, here's some dairy farmers using it. So I went out and bought as many books as I could to really learn all I could about Lean manufacturing, Lean management. And since then I've done a few courses and that sort of thing just to, sort of, hone in on exactly what Lean is and how it can apply to farming. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah no, that's fantastic. I mean, I've not implemented it at home, mind you we certainly need to, and we'll talk a bit about that as we go through the podcast. But yeah, there's a book that I've read The Lean Dairy Farm by Jana and Mat Hocken, and it's really good. There's great, clear, practical things in there. So look, you've mentioned it's a system about eliminating waste from the business to help you be efficient and effective, and there's quite a number of tools that form part of Lean, can you run through perhaps some of the main ones that you find value in? 

James McRae: I think probably maybe a step before that is to recognise the waste. So there's actually eight wastes of Lean and when we can understand the wastes, and as we're going out throughout our daily practice on the farm, we can sort of start to see waste. And I think that's really critical before we start to put in some of these tools so that when we do start to use the tools, we've got a very clear idea of what they're addressing. 

So if we go through the eight wastes quickly, and I'll give a few examples. First one is defects. So things like mastitis, that's a defect. It's a waste in our business. It costs us a lot of money and time fixing it. And we've got overproduction. So let's say we produced too many animals to sexed semen and we've got an overproduction of heifers. So we're spending time, money, growing all those heifers. Or maybe we've got to search for a market for them now. We've got waiting. So that's a big one on farms, I think. Is staff waiting for a tool or waiting for instruction. There seems to be a lot of waiting and if we can sort of acknowledge that and work out how we can work around it so there’s not so much waiting. Underutilised talent, that's a really big one, especially on farms that have a lot of staff. Everyone has the capacity to make changes within their processes that they're undertaking. So even from the work experience student to the owner and manager, we've got people that are undertaking processes every day. So carrying buckets to feed the calves, that's a process. And if we can encourage them to reduce the waste out of those processes, that's really going to open up a lot of that talent that sometimes is hidden, underutilised talent. Transportation, that's a big one, like shifting bails from the stack that's two kilometres down the road just to get it up to the dairy, sort of thing, that's a waste too. So if we can think about how to limit that. Inventory, so having too much stock on hand. So let's say we've gone out and bought five packs of mastitis treatment just because it was cheap or there's some deal on, and all of a sudden we get good weather and we don't use half of it and then it goes out of date. You know, that's an inventory waste. So storing too many spare parts. Another good example of that inventory waste is, let's say we stocked up on spare parts from a machinery item and then we sell the item. It might’ve cost us a few hundred dollars to have those spare parts and let's say you don't need it now. So that's excess inventory. The next one is motion. So that's people motion. So moving backwards and forwards a lot in the dairy, for example. 

Sheena Carter: I've got an example of that on our farm. We're going to do some vaccination and we go up to the yards and we've forgotten something, so we've got to come back again and go back again. 

James McRae: Yeah, so we're sort of thinking about how we can reduce some of those wastes. And the last one is extra processing or over processing. And I think this one’s fairly common with things like trying to chase the lowest cell count we possibly can, for example. So let's say we're really trying to push a really low cell count, but in the end we're taking cows out of the vat maybe, or we're over working in the dairy to try and achieve that when it's not really necessary for the value of our customer.

Sheena Carter: There’s minimal benefit. 

James McRae: Yeah, that's right. So that's overprocessing. So they're the eight wastes and what we’ll do, if it's alright with you, Sheena, we might put an A4 sheet up on the show notes so people can just stick that on the wall and think about it every day.

Sheena Carter: That'd be brilliant. Yeah, that'd be awesome. 

James McRae: Yeah, so they’re the eight wastes and from that we can make some tools that try to address the eight wastes and maybe do some reading on some of these books on how to use them. But they're very practical tools. So I suppose if I was to pick out three that are really simple for farmers to use, first one would be Five Whys. So every time we hit a problem, let's ask why five times or as many times as we need to, to work out the root cause of the problem. To give you an example, let's say we've just had a split liner in the dairy at milking time. So that's the issue. Let's ask five whys. So why did it happen? Because the liners didn't get changed on time. Why did that happen? Because the staff didn’t know when they had to be changed. Why? Because there was no whiteboard in the diary room to say when they needed to be changed. So we're starting to hone down on what the root cause is. So let's get a little whiteboard up. Let's put when the liner is due, when the milk tube is due for changing, let's get it up there where the staff can see it so that it doesn't happen again. It's like a dripping tap. It's asking why as many times until you get the root cause of the problem. 

Sheena Carter: Right, and then hopefully prevent it happening again. 

James McRae: Yeah, that's right. And coming up with a way to prevent it happening again. So that's a really simple one that anyone can do. Next one is probably going to be visual management boards. So start to use whiteboards or boards on the wall that everyone can see. So a really good one to start with is just to have one with the days of the week on it. So you can get this really cool stuff called whiteboard tape, which is instead of drawing lines, you just use tape on your whiteboards and just write the days of the week on top. 

And then every time jobs come up, we can write them on the board. What you can do if you have lots of staff too, you can give each staff member a coloured whiteboard marker and you can write their colour for their job, or get them to do it, on these whiteboards. So when people come, they can see the colour of the staff member that should be doing those jobs and whether it's been done and you can tick them off too. 

Sheena Carter: I will just add at this point that you do have a reputation as a bit of a whiteboard junky. 

James McRae: Yeah, I get heaps from my wife for that one. I think the best part with these visual management boards and whiteboards is that they’re right there in front of you every day. So when it's there in your face on the wall, there's no hiding it. It's right there. When I’m in the dairy I might have something come into my head and I'll run out and write it on the weekly whiteboard. 

Sheena Carter: It's quite important really, because, you know, for a lot of people visually is how they operate. They need to be able to see something. 

James McRae: Absolutely, and I think a lot of farmers and a lot of farm staff are very visual people, very hands on sort of people. Yeah, I would just start with a weekly board and try and have some room for expanding that out to other quality boards, production boards, safety boards, all sorts of things. 

Sheena Carter: So they're kind of ones where you're looking at tracking what's happening at a point in time and monitoring that. Looking back and monitoring that. 

James McRae: That's right. There’s really cool things like a safety queue, which is a queue split up into every day of the month: one, two, three, four, five… until the end and then you just colour in each day. So you have it laminated and use a whiteboard marker and just colour it in, so green is good – so we're on track with quality. Orange is that it needs a bit of work, and red is, we missed our quality marks. And so you can keep track of that daily. It's really, really simple and it's very visual so everyone can see whether we're on track or not and address it on the day rather than getting to the end of the month and reviewing our quality info on the computer and going, whoa, what happened there? Yeah, the visual boards are great. Start with the weekly one, that's probably the easiest thing to do for farmers. 

So the other one, which is a really practical one, is Five S. So this is where we choose a spot in the business – it could be in the office, it could be in the in the dairy – and we say, we're going to organise that space so it's really easy to use. So let's say we pick the dairy and the dairy toolbox. So we've got a toolbox full of tools at the dairy, and that's what we use to use to adjust things or fixed breakdowns at the dairy. And right now we've got a toolbox full of tools, half of which are missing. So if we're going to Five S it, the first S is sort, we're going to sort it out. So we're actually going to pull all that out of the toolbox, we’re going to spread it out on the ground, and we're going to work out exactly what we need in that spot. And we're going to add any tools that are missing or we're going to buy any tools and missing. We're going to get rid of some tools that are there that might need to be in the shed, rather. We're going to get exactly what we need and we need to involve staff that are in that area, we really need to involve them so that they have the tools that they want. So that’s sorting it out and we're going to have, let's say we're going to do a tool board, so we’re going to get a bit of plyboard and we're just going to paint it white and that's going to fit all those tools, so we're going to sort them out. We're going to set them in order now. So we're going to have our nit of plyboard and we're going to put them all in the order that we think we’d use them. The things that we use regularly should be at the most prominent spot on the board. So we're going to set them in order. We're going to trace around them in a colour. So we're going to choose a colour for the dairy. On our farm we've chosen blue, so we’ve got a blue strip around the tool board – that's for the dairy. We know that anything that has blue on it, any tool that has blue – so we spray a bit of blue on them – a tool that has blue belongs to the dairy. So if we find that in the tractor. 

Sheena Carter: Yep, who left it in the tractor? 

James McRae: And it doesn't happen often at all now because we've got the tools we need in the areas that we need them. So we're going to trace around them, we’re going to put them where they need to be on that board and they're now up in the dairy hanging up and they’re set in order. Next, we're going to shine it. So we've got number three, shine. So we're just going to clean everything as we go, make sure everything's working, give things a bit of spray with WD 40, make sure everything's operational, so when we go to use it, we're not having to worry about that. 

So the next one is, we're going to standardise it. So now that we've got a system, a standard, so, of the colour coding, of the sorting, of the setting in order, we're going to create that elsewhere on the farm. So our shed, for example, is yellow, our workshop. So every tool is the outlined in the in the workshop and it has yellow on each tool as well. It's basically, you can see it, it’s the same as the dairy. So that's the standard that we're creating. And number five is sustaining. So we just need to sustain it. And that's what I've really noticed is, because I've been sort of driving this and getting it all set up and putting the work in, now dad's finding it really easy to find tools, so he's willing to sustain it now because he's seen the benefit. 

Sheena Carter: Yes, it does sound, you know, slightly OCDish. 

James McRae: Yeah, people have said that to all sorts of different Lean practitioners before, and one of the Lean leaders said, it's hard work that makes life easier. And that's a really key point. It is a bit of work initially, but once it's done, very, very little happens with it. Although it may seem a bit OCD, it's actually really easy to sustain because we know exactly what goes where and it just makes everything run more smoothly.

Sheena Carter: On that, I guess, you know, your example of a toolbox is a quick and a simple one, but there's many areas in the business, particularly a dairy farm, where you've got, let's say, chaos that could be ordered. This is not been an overnight journey for you. It's a long burn, isn't it? It's not something that's all going to be done next week. 

James McRae: Yeah, it's definitely a marathon, not a sprint. It does take that time out of the business, but it's directly benefiting the business. Although it might, in the short term, it might seem like a lot of work and a lot of time on things that aren't directly benefiting, but in the long term they are having a huge impact. They've already had a huge impact on our business and we've, sort of, been doing Lean probably full on for about three years now. And I'd say it's in the last 12 months that we really started to see those big benefits. 

So yeah, and I've probably dabbled with it for the last six years or so, six or seven years. So there are stages of Lean and one of the really good authors of Lean in agriculture, Suzanne, she says that there's stages of Lean. So initial implementation is actually really, sort of, exciting for people and they sort of get into it and then it starts to lag a bit because it does take, sort of, that continuous improvement and then, as it continues on and people start to see benefits, the excitement or the motivation goes up again. 

So yeah, it's something that has to be followed, yeah, sort of daily to really get the benefits and to make those little continuous improvements every day to really, sort of, see the benefits over the long term. And I think the biggest benefit, I mean, we don't have many staff, but it makes our life run a lot more smoothly and that's really critical for smaller dairies that don't have the staff because we're relying on ourself and it allows me to work at some of this off-farm income as well. But for larger farms it can have huge impacts because staff members start to feel valued because they feel like they’re making an impact in the business and they're also improving their processes that they're doing every day too. So when they're improving their processes they're making their life easier as well. 

Sheena Carter: And reward at the end of it, you know, self-satisfaction reward. 

James McRae: Yeah, that's right, a­nd I think then it's good for everyone. But what I will say is that it has to be driven by someone. It doesn't have to be the owner or the manager. If the managers recognise that there's a team member that's really keen on continuous improvement, it might be them. It might be them running the daily meetings, it might be them starting to implement or engaging with staff to make those continuous improvements, but it has to be encouraged from the top. It's absolutely impossible, and you've got leaders like Larry Culp from General Electric in America, an enormous company, who's so into Lean that it’s flowing down throughout the company. But there’s other companies that the owner or manager may just introduce it is a bit of a fad, sort of, efficiency program and it doesn't get sustained because they're just telling the staff what to do. They’re not allowing their staff to make those improvements themselves. I think it has to be encouraged from the top but it doesn't have to be driven from the top, but it has to provide an environment that staff members can feel like they're allowed to make those improvements. 

Sheena Carter: Yes, that's good. And I guess that's going to have a, you know, a big immediate impact. Once you've done something like that, you can see that you've achieved something and it's been efficient and as you've alluded to, eliminated, well, probably several wastes, but probably one of the wastes is time in looking for tools or the right tool or, you know, not a broken tool, all that sort of thing. 

James McRae: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the same goes for the spare parts, just having them Five S’d as well. It makes life a lot easier, especially when poo hits the fan and you're really under the pump and everything’s there. A really good, sort of thing I’ve heard, is that you should be able to find a tool or a spare parts within 60 seconds. And if you take longer than that you're wasting a lot of time. 

Sheena Carter: Yes, I chuckled thinking of a few examples at home. Like the jumper leads. Where the heck at the jump leads? 

James McRae: Yeah. 

Sheena Carter: Very good. So any other tools that you wanted to mentioned? As you say, there are lots. 

James McRae: Yeah, there's a huge amount of tools. I think when you start to get into it, you’ll start to use Kanban cards, which is basically a simple sort of card on your spare parts. As you use those spares, you will get to, say within a couple of spares that you need to have on hand, and you’ll come to a tag and on that tag is the exact item, where to order from – we’ve got QR scanner now – that we scan the QR code for that item and it brings up an email attachment and straight away we can send that email to the supplier. So we're going to reorder that spare part straight away. So we’re never without spare parts or products in the dairy like chemical and that sort of thing. 

Sheena Carter: I think you have done a Facebook post on that recently, did you? 

James McRae: Yeah, I’ve got some of these tools on Facebook if anyone wants to check them out. But they’re just really practical, simple tools that make sure that, instead of when you're really, really busy and under the pump on the farm, instead of running around stressing and using those spare parts and then forgetting what you've used, and then the next time it happens, you're like, oh no, I don't have that spare part, I'm going to drive an hour to Taree or something. Instead of doing that, you just have systems in place that mean that when things steady up a bit after the breakdown or stressful time, you've got these cards there that tell you what to reorder. It's just simple processes to improve processes. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah. And I think, you know, you've mentioned that it takes time implementing some of this, which is very understandable and I guess, you know, bringing other people in the business on the journey with you. As you said, it doesn't have to be led from the top, and I think you've sort of given an example already of how your father's come on board with the whole process, which is fantastic, and I guess it's, sort of, demonstrating the value within the business. But I guess within a larger business, it's really a culture, isn't it? It's trying to bring the individuals into that mindset and that approach. 

James McRae: Yeah, exactly. It's not a tool. Lean’s not a tool, it's really a management process. It really should go throughout the whole organisation, otherwise it just won't work. Yeah, I was talking to Dad about it because he's actually overseas at the moment and I said, Oh, can you give me any feedback on Lean, I’m talking to Sheena about it, and I said, don't hold back because I want to get an honest answer. And dad said that his main points with it were that it's really nice to work now without clutter around. He said it's really nice to have all the spares available in the dairy now when we have these little breakdowns or little issues and the ability to find tools when he needs them. So they're the sort of things that they don't go super into the detailed management of the farm, but they're just little things that made a big difference throughout the day. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, it's good. And, you know, you can kind of understand that if you walk into a shed where there's just stuff everywhere and on the floor and on the bench and whatever, it's yeah, it can be diabolical and drive you bonkers. 

James McRae: Yeah. Especially when you really need the room, like when you had a critical breakdown or something, yeah, there's nothing worse than not being able to find that tool. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, well and truly. Okay. So look, we've mentioned your Facebook page, which we'll put a link in the show notes for people to have a look at some of your posts because they're really… I mean, they're not all about Lean management. You do a lot of general farm, you know what's happening at various times of the year, all sorts of really, really good stuff. And you've mentioned that, you know, Lean is a process and you've mentioned the word ‘continuous improvement’ a few times, and I know that there is a post on your Facebook page of you sitting in front of a screen on an international Lean management webinar. So you've got to join, become part of various networks in the Lean space, I guess. Can you tell us about some of these networks and resources, such as YouTube things perhaps, that you use that might, I guess, help you stay motivated? 

James McRae: Yeah, I think Lean's really cool in that it's very inclusive. That's part of Lean, like Toyota has shared how to run the Toyota production system with other organisations. I mean that's a very open thing, I think, for a corporation to do and I think in general Lean is like that. So don't be afraid to actually email some of the people you see on YouTube, which I've done in the past and got a really good response back from. It’s really cool to be able to email someone that, you know, runs 300 staff at a manufacturing facility and they write back. 

The other thing is, there’s a couple of Facebook groups: so, 2 Second Lean, Paul Akers is the author of 2 Second Lean, but it's sort of an offshoot of, or a type of Lean, which is really useful for people – it's a free Facebook group. Myself and a Lean consultant in the US have just started Lean Agricultural Connections – a private Facebook group for any farmer that would like to, or that is using Lean, so we're trying to use it as a sharing platform for farmers using Lean, so that's getting quite a lot of likes now, which is nice.  And it's all about sharing. It's about sharing different ideas and if we've got issues, sharing it there and seeing if the international group can come together and address it. So there's lots of really cool YouTube clips though: UpFlip, with Paul Akers, is a really good one; AME’s tour of Yellotools in Germany. We've got some really cool books: 2 Second Lean; The Lean Dairy Farm by Jana and Mat Hocken; Lean in Agriculture by Susanne Pejstrup.

Sheena Carter: Yep, well pronounced.

James McRae: Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker; The Machine That Changed The World as I mentioned earlier. So yeah, there's a really good podcast with Larry Culp from GE on The P/V Podcast. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, we'll put a link in the show notes to a lot of those things and mention them so that people can find them. 

James McRae: Yeah, but in the end, I think it's really just about starting. Just start and fix. And as Paul Akers says, fix what bugs you. So if something's bugging you, fix it and make 2 Second improvement every day. Inevitably it leads into more improvements and more improvements. So over the coming years you'll start to be a lot more efficient. 

Sheena Carter: Yeah, fantastic. Look, I think that's been really insightful and, you know, you can hear the passion in your voice about Lean, which is wonderful and I think, you know, is there anything that you'd say regarding… if you hadn't adopted Lean in the business, what would you be facing now in the business? The challenges? 

James McRae: I was thinking about that before. I think we would be spending a lot more time on those non value added sort of wastes, that I mentioned earlier. We actually spend a lot more time on the value added things now like spending time with the kids and Lauren. Spending time on some of those off-farm income options and actually planning a lot more. So planning for the future and actually just having that headspace to make those plans on a day to day basis in a very, very calm… well, I suppose most of the time it's fairly calm, you know, because we've got everything there it feels like we're in control. And I think if we went back before Lean, a lot of the time we were chasing our tail, you know, we didn't have a… we’d sort of, sporadically plan, we'd sporadically do things and we were often, sort of, chasing spare parts that we'd forgotten to replace, or we didn't have, sort of, some of these calendar of operations so things weren't getting maintained on time. So I suppose we’re just generally feeling like we're more in control now and there's a lot less waste in the business now.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, things happening in a timely manner. Less downtime. All right, well, thank you, James. I've really enjoyed our chat and it's been great to have you on the show and we will put a few links in the show notes, certainly to your Facebook page and some of those other resources that you mentioned for the listeners. So yeah, thank you for being part of The Business of Dairy podcast. 

James McRae: Yeah, thanks Sheena and I look forward to seeing some other farmers getting Lean. 

Sheena Carter: Yes, we might have to have a school at your place – rope them in. Great stuff. Thanks, James. 

Thank you for listening to this month's The Business of Dairy Podcast, produced by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Dairy Business Advisory Unit. This series is also brought to you with funding and support from the Hunter Local Land Services. I hope you enjoyed this month's chat with James. The show notes contain links to resources that will hopefully further pique your interest in Lean and give you practical ideas to implement in your business to reduce waste and develop a more time and resource efficient business. 

We'd love you to share this podcast with your networks and feel free to send any feedback or suggestions for future episodes to thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com. You can also subscribe to our New South Wales DPI Dairy Facebook and DPI Livestock Twitter feed and view or subscribe to our quarterly DPI dairy newsletter using the links provided.