Practice Abstract - Research and innovation

Applying LEAN on a farm

What is LEAN?
Dairy Lean is a management system that encourages continuous improvement in production efficiency, maximizing value creation and minimizing losses in every dairy production process.
How does it work ?
The process is in 3 steps : define the medium term goals and share them with associates and employees, organize the work by designing  a person responsible per task, and finally have tool to communicate.
At the beginning it can require time investment and support to put in place the method, but afterwards it is a winning solution with time saving, reducing loss of information, of materials... At the end it allows to save money.
Several practical examples of LEAN practices :
- A board meeting to plan the weekly tasks and the objectives in order to evaluate them
- Task cards to describe steps to carry out a task. To standardize procedure between different workers.
- Instruction transmission board to avoid loss of information and communication problem, to put up in various places (milking parlor... nursery)
A final advice to implement lean method : identify only one or two top priorities and then define simple actions to implement in order to avoid dispersion. 

Source Project
Resilience for Dairy
Completed | 2021-2024
Main funding source
Horizon Europe (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
Geographical location
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Spain, Slovenia, Netherlands, Northern Ireland
Project details