In 2012 we asked LeanPlus to come in and work with us to map out and streamline our business processes. Martin’s wealth of experience and knowledge of Lean methods plus his ability to work equally well with both Technical and Admin staff has helped us trim the waste from our processes. This resulted in some real sustained gains in quality and efficiencies. Working with our people on their real issues, LeanPlus not only improved the way we work but more importantly has delivered a sustainable template for continuous improvement in ICBF.

HerdPlus’ core delivery is to produce genetic reports to farmers on time. Statistics compilation and report generation from a national database requires co-operation across many different departments, from Geneticists, IT staff to the Print/Dispatch team. Working with these key players, LeanPlus applied the DMAIC method and now the team has a more efficient process flow resulting in a much improved lead time - went from 17 working days to 9 days for report dispatch. Martin’s ability to pull together such a diverse group and have the tools and knowledge to identify and implement, helped us realise that improvement

In 2006 the numbers of herds availing of our Milk Recording Service had plateau’d - our process was labour intensive and at the time farm labour was scarce. Martin helped us critique our processes and identified a new technology which made us less dependent on direct labour. Through Martin’s direction, utilising Electronic meters which auto-sampled, we started a Farmer DIY pilot in 2006. I’m glad to say that we subsequently rolled out the new DIY Electronic service option and now in 2012 over 33% of our recorded herds are recorded using this technology. Martin’s role in identifying the opportunity and mapping out the resulting new process was instrumental to its success