Has how we measure productivity had its day?

I should be clear, I do not assume that the pig or any other sector of the agriculture industry looks at productivity in terms of a single metric. Instead I suggest there is a metric or KPI that has grown to be used more than most to signify productivity, in the case of pigs: Pigs/Sow/Year. Each sector has their own equivalent e.g. tonnes/hectare, lambing percentage etc.

There is of course good reason for these metrics dominating the discussion, in simple terms the sow produces piglets that are then finished to provide income. Pigs out equal’s pounds in, it is simple to demonstrate the link between piglets produced and income on a balance sheet. The issue for me, is when the pursuit of a single metric starts to exclude others from the discussion, especially in opportunities to extract sustainable profit.

The push for ever greater performance of sows in terms of pigs/sow/year has consequence as the genetic potential of a species is finite. In fact, genetic selection for prolificacy in sows has been shown to have a negative effect on litter variability, as the ability of the uterus to hold viable foetuses is reached, an increase in variation is noticed in the resulting litters (Lund et al., 2002; Tribout et al., 2003; Foxcroft, 2008; Quesnel et al., 2008). Campos et al. (2010) stated that these findings suggest that increased litter size induces an increased proportion of light piglets, a concomitant decrease in litter uniformity and average piglet birth weight, having negative effects on the piglets’ viability and performance.

When production reaches a point at which the key metric starts to have perverse outcomes i.e. outcomes contrary to the stated aim of greater ‘productivity’ it is time to look at other measures. A sort of counter balance or sense check. In manufacturing this comes from measures such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) that looks not on the income recorded from produced units (Numbers of pigs/sow/year sold as income) but at the lost opportunity costs. Those animals that never reached productive potential, or sit within the heard at greatly reduced potential, making up the numbers.

All agriculture and horticulture business take inputs, pass them through a process and produce outputs. The process can be broken down into steps in the same way a production line manufacturing cars or mobile phones could be. The difference in agricultural production is those steps are spread over a wider area and the ‘machinery’ of production is a complex biological system. In the case of crop production that is the soil, in the case of livestock production that is the cow, sow or ewe.

Whilst OEE doesn’t aim to suggest that sentient animals should be treated as a machine, it does suggest that the performance and careful management strategies used in manufacturing could be used to improve performance and welfare of these animals and in turn help reduce the carbon footprint and increase the financial performance of the business.

OEE makes use of the cumulative inefficiencies of 3 metrics: Availability, Performance and Quality (AxPxQ) to give a figure of the percentage of the productive units (sows, cows, ewes, hectare of soil) that are performing at their most efficient.

Whilst the calculation is straightforward, deciding which metrics to utilise is more complex.

Availability: Takes into account planned and unplanned stops in production (The usual biological limits of performance). In livestock terms this is the percentage of animals that are guaranteed to produce a new unit of production i.e. calving rate, lambing rate and farrowing rate. In crops it is the percentage of potential fertile land that has received a sown crop.

Performance: Takes into account slow cycles and small stops in production (the unforeseen events). In livestock production it’s the percentage of animals producing a target fertility marker i.e. percentage of sows hitting 2.25 litters/sow/year or ewes hitting a target lambing percentage and calves having a positive PD. In crops it is those areas of land that have germinated a sown crop (germination rate).

Quality: The percentage of ‘machinery’ remaining after removing those deemed to be ‘defective’ (Through mortality or deliberate replacement). In livestock terms its is the retention rate (not replacement rate) of animals within their productive window. In crop terms it’s the area of land that produced a target yield.

Examples

A calculation of OEE is made by multiplying the three values together

Overall Equipment Effectiveness = A x P x Q

1. OEE pigs = Farrowing percentage x Percentage of pigs achieving target litters/sow/year x Retention rate

If a pork producer is farrowing at 83.12% (UK average Q4 2020) and 80% of the sows are producing 2.25 litters per year or more (UK average Q4 2020) and their retention rate (not replacement rate) to parity 5 is 65% then their OEE equals:

OEE = 0.8312 x 0.80% x 0.65%

OEE = 43%

 2. OEE beef cattle = % non-empty cows x % of cattle hitting target calving period x Retention rate

If a beef producer has a % non-empty cows of 90.3% (9.3% average empty cows from 2016 stock take) and a % of cattle hitting a target calving period of 15 weeks of 90% as well as a retention rate of 83.3% (based on a 16.7% replacement rate from 2016 stock take) then the OEE would be:

OEE = 0.903 x 0.90 x 0.833

OEE = 68%

Whilst each of the measures of performance are in a threshold that would be considered good (They are the average for the industry) when taken as a whole they show the true extent of the herd that is not meeting the maximum productivity i.e. 32% (Almost 1 in 3) of beef breeding cattle in this example are not at their maximum productivity.

OEE percentages explained

In manufacturing terms the following OEEs are rough benchmarks for those businesses considered excellent, average and needing to take action

An OEE of 85% = A business that has excellent control of its production performance and is the top 25% of all effective businesses. This would be described as world class

An OEE of 65% = A business that has room for growth but is performing well. In manufacturing this is the average.

An OEE of 40% = This is considered low and would indicate either a business that has production issues that require urgent attention or a business which is new and still aligning its production processes. At this point and lower a business’s viability would be questionable.

Improving your OEE

The use of OEE shows producers 3 key areas of their production, targeting the lowest percentage first is a good strategy, in most livestock enterprises this is focusing on effective selection integration and early management of breeding stock to ensure they have the potential to remain in the herd.