- Production performance improvement – reducing production variation is the innovation fuel (investment) for technology.
- Production margin erosion in wean-to-market – Alerting growers and production supervisors of major shifts in leading indicators for health will reduce the margin erosion because of an increased speed in response. The value of that can be difficult to quantify because of the complexity associated with determining the cost mortality.
- Visibility – De-risking remote locations through real-time mortality reporting and human interaction
- System aggregated performance index for multi-state locations
- Commoditization of data – What used to be unique is now becoming normal, creating little market differentiation. Our industry is quickly commoditizing data in the raw form. With the onset of sensor companies and bolt-on solutions for connectivity and remote access in real-time, environmental and feed data are becoming accessible to producers for $5,000-$7,500.
- Leading indicators – The technology company’s role is to create a way to receive data in the moment from sites. The mitigation of margin erosion must start with the reporting of leading indicator that allows for in-the-moment course correction. The data collection lag need to be narrowed for mortality, feed, health and human engagement. In-the-moment reporting informs analytics tools for improving barn efficiency and metric reporting.
- IT architecture – Systems integration expertise is a prerequisite for successful value creation. Every pork production system has monument platforms, software and hardware systems that are irreplaceable to the business because they are so intricately integrated into daily operations. A technology provider must have an appreciation for these monument systems and integrate the new platforms.
Read more at https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/business/tips-assessing-value-technology
