And so, a large operation like The
“We were having a hard time measuring
The company wanted to move to a
Maschhoffs must contend with a
all the impacts of our space decisions,”
distributed leadership model, with
continuous flow of pigs between
said Dugan, who oversees the transport
smaller geographic territories, to
different types of farms – from sow
of 700 to 800 trailer truckloads of live
give managers a better line of sight
(or breeding) facilities, to weaning,
pigs each week.
into the business’ leased assets and
feeding and finishing facilities.
The company’s logistical system
contracted farming operations.
“We have 73 different sow farms, and
consisted of Excel spreadsheets,
The problem? Without modeling and
when piglets grow to about 21 days
providing only a small window into
predictive technology, they couldn’t
old, we need to start looking for the
how many pigs were flowing through
reliably determine the optimal number
best space to house them,” explained
their system at any one time. Without
of divisions, or which facilities should
Morgan Dugan, director of supply chain
more precise analytical tools, they
be included in each region.
management and logistics for The
couldn’t project how much farm space
Maschhoffs.
they’d need in the next month, for
instance, or compare the costs of their
“We could ask a flow planner to project
our flow to sites for the next 52 weeks,
owned and leased facilities.
but that would require somebody three
can accommodate the sows and the
The Maschhoff’s analytical and
can’t really ‘war game’ different options
piglets. In six to 10 weeks, the young
predictive limitations became even
if you have to wait that long,”
pigs are moved to finishing facilities
more apparent when company
that can accommodate the larger size
leaders decided to reorganize the
animals.
business from a national to a regional
Weaning farms are specially equipped
for young pigs, with pen sizes that
days to complete,” Dugan said. “And you
management structure.
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