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Northern Valley Dairy Production Medicine Center
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Office Hours:
Monday-Friday
7:30 AM-5:00 PM
Saturday
8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Sunday-Closed
24-hour Emergency Service
900 N. Wabasha, Plainview, Minnesota 55964 (507) 534-4356
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TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT – “TQM”
What does it have to do with cows anyway? As it turns out, it has A LOT to do with cows. The term total quality management, or TQM, has been used for years in business and industry. TQM is a tool to help businesses succeed by reducing variation and by producing quality products.
Your dairy cows eat feed, produce milk, and have calves. But they don’t do it all by themselves. Someone has to feed them, house them, detect them in heat, inseminate them, sometimes help them give birth, milk them, keep them clean, dry, and comfortable, and haul away their manure. If you can do this all by yourself you probably have a good handle about the things that happen on your farm on a daily basis. However, if you have family help or employees, you do not know everything that goes on.
The Business of Quality Management
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Do your employees or family members do everything the same way as you do? Do your employees understand what parameters to use in making decisions? Do your employees know if they are successful? As businesses grow it becomes more important to organize the business. Who is the boss? What is the job description of each employee? Then you must organize work. This means documenting processes used on the farm. Processes are just a series of tasks that, when performed in proper sequence, produce something. Preparing cows for milking is a process. Mixing feed is a process. Heat detection is a process. Would you like it if everyone performed each of these processes exactly the way you do? We can help your organize your business and organize work on your dairy. space
If processes are correct, and are performed correctly, expect to have consistent (little variation), quality products. If processes are incorrect, expect to have a consistent, but poorer quality product. If processes are correct, but are performed inconsistently, expect to have an inconsistent product.
So what is all the fuss about TQM?
Assessment & Monitoring
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Of course to make these assessments we must have a way to measure products on your dairy. A product may be something like well-stimulated, clean cows ready for milking, or a pregnant cow. This is where our expertise in record analysis is important to help you understand what to monitor and how to monitor it.
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Only having your employees monitoring is not enough. If your employees do not fully understand what products they are supposed to produce, and what monitors will be used, you will have difficulty producing quality, consistent products. You need to develop feedback systems to let employees know how they are doing. If these systems are effective, problems that develop on your farm will usually be fixed before you ever knew they existed. If you do not, someone may try to fix them by who-knows-what method, if they happen to notice them, or if someone notifies them of the problem. Or they may choose to ignore the problem until someone notifies them again. Or, the problem may continue without anyone noticing!
From Concept to Implementation
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TQM concepts are very simple. Most of us use them in everyday life. However, most of us do not have experience applying them to a business. Producing milk is a business. It is a business that you may use to provide your way of life, but it is still a business. We have experience in helping producers organize work, develop monitoring systems, and create ways to provide feedback to employees. All of our doctors understand the concepts of TQM on dairies. We can help you reduce variation on your dairy and produce a quality product.