Key Points

• Agriculture stands to benefit quite heavily from Lean Six Sigma tools.
• Proper implementation and adaptation of Lean Six Sigma in agribusiness can lead to increased crop yields.
• Resource optimization is further improved by adhering to LSS practices.

Lean Six Sigma in agriculture might just be the transformation needed for the world’s food supply. When you get right down to it, agriculture as a whole isn’t too different compared to the likes of manufacturing. You have all the hallmarks of your standard production line, with shareholders, inputs, suppliers, and so forth, all present and accounted for. Much like any standard manufacturing business, you have certain quality metrics you’ll want to hit for customer satisfaction.

So, with that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the ways Lean Six Sigma can transform agriculture to create a more efficient and stable means of production. We’ll take a look at some of the initiatives in use and how the methodology can be applied to farming and shipping.

Lean Six Sigma: An Overview

Lean Six Sigma is a hybrid approach to managing projects and processes that utilizes the best elements of Lean and Six Sigma. The hybrid approach itself came about by taking the elements aimed at improving quality and consistency from the likes of Six Sigma and combining it with the bits of Lean that focus heavily on the reduction of waste and cost-savings. Since its introduction, LSS has become a powerful means of managing businesses.

However, beyond being a methodology utilized for the likes of projects and processes, it is essentially an entire philosophy that encompasses the whole of an organization’s culture. Lean Six Sigma is a powerful means of transforming your business. It isn’t intended solely for the likes of manufacturing as well.

Lean Six Sigma remains one of the leading forces driving businesses. This has resulted in the adoption of LSS by industries as varied as tech, education, and much more.

Why Businesses Use Lean Six Sigma

LSS remains a popular choice with businesses, thanks to its versatility. Sure, it can be used to transform manufacturing processes into more able and efficient versions of themselves. However, that would be selling the methodology as a whole short. Instead, it is important to consider Lean Six Sigma as a transformative method of changing a business’s fortunes.

The tools and applications of the methodology itself are flexible, meaning you can apply them to any industry. When properly utilized, you’re gaining the same net benefits that a business that focuses solely on the production of goods might receive.

When considering the particulars around something like agriculture, as we’re discussing today, Lean Six Sigma provides the means to optimize, refine, and ultimately transform any endeavor into a more successful version of itself. However, it takes a deft hand and the right educational foundations to make the most of LSS.

Lean Six Sigma in Agriculture: Transforming Farming

Where do you start when considering Lean Six Sigma in agriculture? Well, as with any adoption and effort centered around Lean Six Sigma, you start at the top. That means taking a closer look at the particulars surrounding your farm or agricultural business. While assembly lines aren’t the normal domain of something like a farm, there are still considerations to keep in mind.

Things like the rotation of crops, monitoring of fertilizer and plant care products, and ensuring machine uptime are going to make a substantial difference in how an agricultural business fares. The same also extends to the likes of packaging.

While from the farm to the table is a wonderful concept, that isn’t realistic for most urban centers around the world. As such, care and quality standards need to be met when packaging the farm’s output to guarantee customers are getting the best possible output when shopping.

Utilization of LSS Tools for Crop Yields

There are numerous tools at your disposal when it comes to Lean Six Sigma in agriculture. You have process improvement frameworks like DMAIC which can readily help to determine where you’ve got bottlenecks in crop growth and output. When putting together a DMAIC initiative to analyze crop yields, having data on hand is going to be vital.

The same DMAIC efforts can center around other aspects of the farming business as well. Considerations like the aforementioned packaging come to mind. However, quite a few of these tools and the decision-making associated with them work best when maximizing the crop yields of your core plant choices.

Rather than contending with waste, you can readily analyze where things are going wrong with the output. When applying things like root-cause analysis and more stringent data analysis, you’re preparing your farm for a 21st-century transformation.

Packing Fruits and Vegetables with Process Improvement

As I mentioned in my last point, there is quite a bit to keep in mind when packaging fruits and veggies for sale. Not every locale is going to benefit from the likes of a farmer’s market or a standalone shop. When considering distances for commutes, it simply isn’t realistic unless you’ve got an ideal location. However, improving the packaging process is going to yield fantastic results on the whole.

You’ll likely have some feedback from your customers, in this case, clients like supermarkets. These are key data points to discover where defects or damaged products are arriving on shelves. If you aren’t delivering quality output, you’re hindering your chances not just with the main client but their customers as well.

Farming and agriculture are ultimately customer-driven businesses, and taking the time to look at potential bottlenecks and flaws in the packaging and shipping cycles is going to lead to happier customers.

Cycles of Continuous Improvement to Minimize Crop Variability

A culture of continuous improvement and learning is one of the core tenets behind Lean Six Sigma in agriculture, and something you’ll want to cultivate. If you aren’t looking at ways to improve and reduce the variability of elements you control, then you’re selling your business short.

Ultimately, agriculture is going to fall victim to the likes of weather cycles. No one can change that, but you’ve got the means to control things like when plants are fertilized or the ideal times for harvest. Further, you’ve got the data on hand to determine things like runtime and uptime for the machinery used in your organization.

These are all data points that can be further improved with the tools provided by Lean Six Sigma. Honestly, a cycle of continuous improvement should be inherent to any agricultural business. You want to maximize yields, minimize waste, and distribute solid output to your customers for the sake of the business’s longevity.

Maximizing Resource Utilization

Just about any business is going to have some inefficiency going on behind the scenes. Whether it’s dealing with temperamental machines or not making the most of the space provided for production, you want to maximize the resources at your disposal. This is also something you’ll want to consider when looking at Lean Six Sigma in agriculture.

You have a wealth of resources at your disposal when going through any growing season, and you can leverage those to make the most of things like soil health. At the end of harvesting seasons, you’ll likely have quite a bit of waste produced from the plants themselves.

This is a prime opportunity to develop homegrown composting to augment and amend the soil for your primary growing spaces. Further, this is a prime time to look at nonfunctional machines and seek replacements as necessary.

Adoption of New Technologies to Maximize Growing Efforts

When looking at Six Sigma in agriculture, it is high time to modernize. That doesn’t necessarily mean using the latest and greatest agricultural machinery. However, you might want to consider undergoing a higher degree of digital transformation. Leveraging new technologies helps to improve efficiency and aids with data collection.

Agriculture isn’t a business sector that needs to languish. Instead, it is high time to look at things like the use of databases and digital entry methods to log things like crops. This aids in providing historical data to drive process improvement cycles and further assists in identifying potential pain points in the various processes and mechanisms in place at your business.

Lean Six Sigma is versatile and quick to adapt to new workflows, and this might be just what is needed to transform the fortunes of your organization.

Incursions Into New Industries to Minimize Waste

Agriculture isn’t solely for the sake of providing food or raw materials. When looking at Lean Six Sigma in agriculture, this is a great opportunity to utilize the resources you’re producing to break into new industries. Consider something like the coconut for just a moment. On its own, it is a staple of quite a few cuisines. However, you’re left with the husks and shells as waste materials.

Those same waste materials can be leveraged into the likes of something like carbon for water filters or biodiesel for use in alternative fuel markets. This isn’t just a means of reducing your environmental footprint either, this is an alternative revenue stream to augment your primary means of income.

As such, when looking at Lean Six Sigma in agriculture, it is worth taking a look at what you can do with the waste materials produced from your farming. There are almost certainly viable alternatives to just having waste products rot in the sun, it could very easily be a secondary means of paying the bills and keeping the lights on.

Use of Precision for Increased Crop Production

Understanding the health and viability of your soil is going to be what leads to stronger, more resilient crops every year. Utilizing Lean Six Sigma in agriculture means you can rotate those crops with unerring precision. Precision agriculture is one principle of LSS that has been touted over the years. However, there is some validity to the concept.

We have the means and tools available to readily understand which crops need to be rotated to different plots every year. As such, you’ve got the tools to increase crop production, improve soil health, and ultimately make a more efficient and profitable agricultural venture on the whole.

Agriculture is a tricky business, especially when considering the variability of the weather in certain growing regions. However, you can take some of the guesswork out of your crop yields by using tools like data analysis and DFSS to better control the things you have any sway over.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

Looking for some other tips and tricks to get you going? You might want to take a closer look at the likes of the hidden costs of poor quality. Not delivering the optimal service to your customers has a far higher toll than you’d expect.

Additionally, you might want to take a look at Six Sigma vs. Agile to see how these popular methodologies can benefit one another. It isn’t a competition when it comes to looking at approaches but discovering which tools can benefit your organization.

Conclusion

Lean Six Sigma in agriculture is a growing trend, and it isn’t surprising to see why. By leveraging the tools and methodology behind LSS, farmers are making more stable and efficient farms. Hopefully, this growing trend will become more commonplace in the coming years.

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