Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives

Report Generation and Interpretation for the Sow Herd

By Jerry Steck, PigChamp Education and Consulting, University of Minnesota

Production Efficiency – Objectives

Determine when:
Averages for select measures of performance deviate from:

• Targets
• Interference Levels
• Industry Norm

Variation is out of control

Key Measures to Examine in Production

• Output
• Efficiency
• Capacity

Productivity Trees

Component

• Inter-relationships subcomponents
• Mathematical relationships

Risk Factor

• Organized by correlation to the main factor
• No mathematical relationship

Fundamentals

• Types of data collected
• Types of production measures
• Intervals and counts

Assessing Production Efficiency

Things you must understand before looking at production numbers

• Sources of variation
• System influences
• Management practices

Data Integrity- the five critical steps

Repeat Services

• Diagnostic ratios
• Regular returns
• Irregular returns

The 10 Steps to Improving Performance

1. Accurate Data
2. Understand the production system
3. Report with global overview
4. Identify measures exerting the greatest detrimental influence
5. Examine performance measures you are trying to improve
6. Identify measures exerting the greatest detrimental influence
7. Generate additional reports to further characterize the measures and investigate the contributing factors
8. Determine the type of variation causing the sub-optimal performance
9. Address changes that can be changed cost effectively
10. Monitor the response to changes

Precautions

• Comparing different information systems
• Knowing what is in the denominator