Black Box Co for Feedlots

Black Box Co for Feedlots

The Black Box Team are excited to officially announce a product suite for Feedlots!

This package includes Feedlot Performance, Feedlot Feedback, Carcase & MSA Dashboards.  Allowing feedlot operations to easily identify their high and low performers across multiple traits and seamlessly supply data back to suppliers of choice. Most importantly this suite produces key information quickly and easily so that you and your team can get on with the decision making. 

With 10% of Australia’s current cattle on grain on the Black Box Co system system, it is quickly becoming the go-to product to ensure data accuracy  and utilisation in key decision making to create additional value and improve productivity. 

Performance

Building off of the data collection systems already used in the lot feeding industry (e.g. ELynx, Possum Gully) Black Box visualises the data collected and highlights key information required for better management and decision making, so that it can be easily accessed and analysed. This solution saves the extraction of information from multiple reports required by existing systems and improves the feedlots understanding of each supplier, as well as provides insight into supply months in advance. The visual dashboards are easily interpreted by everyone from stock hands, to managers and company boards. 

Using these dashboards feedlots can easily visualise and analyse performance by lot number, contract number, supplier, price, breed, induction date and weight. This information is linked to carcase performance and allows analysis across MSA specifications as well as company specifications to allow the identification of lost opportunity, dollar value and feed intake. This ensures feedlots can quickly track down when and where to buy cattle from that add to their bottom line. 

Emma Black, Cofounder and COO of Black Box Co, has been working closely with the beef supply chain for two years to build out the system.

”'It's been amazing to see so much uptake from the feedlot industry! This has proven that the products that we are offering are really making a difference in our production systems. We are now working with feedlots Australia wide, to improve their data collection, improve utilisation of the data they are already capturing and enable them to make data driven decisions to suit their markets and conditions".

Feedback

Our Feedlot Feedback combines feedlot performance with carcase performance and can be linked back to the animals on farm data by the producer, enabling them to make informed genetic and management decisions. This allows producers to accurately forecast when animals will reach optimal weight for feedlot entry, view hospitalisations and compare breeds. This decision making leads to a more consistent supply of higher quality animals and better supply chain management. 

Allowing a better understanding of how animals perform on feed, right down to the genetics being invested in, results in management and genetics decisions that provide higher quality and more consistent performance in the feedlot and abattoir.

What we’ve found so far: 

• Analysis of our database indicates that a 1% increase in ADG (2.0 to 2.02 kg/head/day) on a 100 day grain fed animal. In a feedlot that turns over 25,000 cattle a year, capturing even 30% of this potential increase results in an increase in revenue of $120,000 annually. This is an example looking at just one of many performance and profitability metrics that can be analysed using Black Box.
• When seasonal and market conditions are tough, Black Box enables feedlots to make informed purchasing decisions by selecting the best lines of cattle from those available. 
• Historical data from our system demonstrates that consistent feedback over time can achieve an increase of ADG of up to 20% and improve consistency by 25%
• Reported reduction in time taken to provide feedlot feedback data to suppliers by approximately two weeks. 

Tightening and shifting the bell curve:

How the system is currently being used: 

• Monthly reporting 
• Internal data audits - monitoring accuracy and identifying gaps in data collection to improve consistency. 
• Quickly identify what is and isn’t meeting contracts 
• Easily identify top 10% of their suppliers
• To seamlessly provide feedback to suppliers of their choice at the touch of a button
• Interpret MSA & Carcase Feedback quickly and with no manual manipulation required
• To save time analysing data without having to pull up to six different reports using other systems. 
• Informing livestock buyer decisions with access to live dashboards from wherever they are

Contact us today to learn how Black Box Co can take your business to the next level!