How to Utilize Data to Drive Efficiency in Feed Production.

What is the most significant impact you’ve seen when using systems that help manage orders and drive production efficiency?

George Slater: The most beneficial part of having a system to streamline orders is how much more information each business unit possesses. When all the facets of the business that are involved in the production, delivery, and scheduling of feed orders, operate with more information, the communication between business departments improves dramatically. The relationships of individuals working in the departments of transport, production, scheduling, and order entry will improve and people within your business will begin to have a better understanding of their colleagues’ challenges. When this happens departments and coworkers will then have the ability to help one another more effectively now that there is awareness of each other's needs. 

How do you move from identifying a lack of efficiency or an issue to taking action, and how do you think a good data system can help?

George Slater: Nothing will solve itself, build a plan with the leaders in your organization and prioritize the issue into tangible steps that a specific leader owns and follows through on. When data is utilized efficiently in an organization the leaders will have the resources to drill into the facets of the business that they need to understand in order to build this plan. In addition, the leaders in an organization are going to understand the real story of what is happening or what happened in the business. The leaders of the business will not have to guess, or use their gut to build a plan, which will rarely be effective and cost much more than the effort to utilize a data system effectively.

How does a lack of digitization of information in the feed industry create challenges for  mills and producers in their quest for better productivity and efficiency?

George Slater:When a feed mill or livestock producer does not have anything to digitize the big data these businesses generate, the challenge will effectively be that they are not managing the small margin that these businesses generate. When producing feed and livestock, it comes down many times to nickels and dimes multiplied by millions of pounds whether it be feed, or the live-weight of a hog. In this industry there is no lack of information. Without technology big data is essentially impossible to sort through, understand, and utilize in a business. When a hog producer sells thousands of hogs a week or a mill produces several thousand tons of feed, the data sets begin to turn into an impossible chore to sort through manually. The simplest tool to use is of course Excel, but this does very little if you don’t have an individual to model the data proficiently for managers to filter and use in operations. The best investment a business can make in themselves is to thoroughly understand the “why” in their organization. These investments can be made in tools that automate your data to continuously add value to your operations, the challenge is of course finding the right tool that works well with your team and your business.

We have had the pleasure to collaborate with you during your time at Belstra Milling Co. What impact have you seen BinSentry have on that organization, and what impact do you see BinSentry making in the future?

George Slater: It was an amazing experience working at Belstra and implementing the BinSentry solution was one of the most challenging projects I worked on. Before the installation of sensors, the several business departments that work together every day had very little knowledge of what was happening out on the farms. Once we had sensors at our facilities communicating to us the rates of consumption, and continuous inventory of our bins, we were equipped to project the feed demand 24-72 hrs into the future. With an internal ordering platform built in-house, paired with the continued development of the BinSentry tools online, business at Belstra changed dramatically. With that being said, sensors don’t come without their own set of challenges, it is still a tool that has to be learned and managed, but at the end of the day and said simply, it has many more benefits than downfalls. The future of BinSentry is very exciting, the sensors are tough, and they work very well with minimal service needed. What will continue to set BinSentry apart will be the continued development of the online tools which will turn the hardware into a seamless actionable process to order feed. 

I am so excited to see how BinSentry can change this headache of a farm chore into a sophisticated process that adds economic value to feed mills and livestock producers! When feed margins are thin, and feed costs for producers are 60%+ of total costs, the opportunity for an ROI increases dramatically.