How many ways can a gate be latched? There are chains, hooks, spring-loaded latches, baler twine and the list goes on and on. One would think that an industry that has been using gates for centuries would have perfected the process by now. So why are there so many ways to do a simple task? It is a demonstration of the innovative nature of our industry. These small innovations, or “minivations,” are what make each dairy unique and serve as a competitive advantage.
If I were to define “minivation” it would be “the small and incremental step of invention designed to make a process or system easier, cheaper or more effective.” When described this way, our businesses are filled with minivations. In fact, as managers, sometimes our only job is to create minivations for the remainder of our team. To provide a few examples, a minivation can be a tweak to the milking protocol to improve teat cleanliness, an onboarding process you use to train and retain good talent, or the way you design the return lanes from the parlor to increase cow flow. All are small parts of the overall system but play a large part in what makes your business unique from others.
Minivations do not exist solely to make us unique. They are the foundation of a business’s competitive advantage. The milking protocol, onboarding process, and parlor design each provides a slight edge above our competition. These small, incremental steps of invention are what provide a competitive advantage in the market. This is because minivations cannot be easily copied by other dairies.
What makes minivations even more crucial is that they are not capital dependent. In other words, it does not require a lot of money to create many minivations. Changing protocols, improving management and making modifications are not restricted by money, rather, they are limited by the creativity, focus and time we attribute to them. Thus, the difference between average and awesome is creating the time and focus to minivate around your business.
To improve our minivating skills there are several things to bear in mind:
- Keep it mini. Small innovations are easier to adopt and lower risk.
- Encourage your team to minivate. Be intentional about asking what would make their jobs easier, faster, or more effective and encourage them to change.
- Don’t look to other dairies for ideas. Be creative. These need to unique to your business’s strengths and opportunities.
- Keep your minivations proprietary. These are your competitive advantages after all.
In our commodity industry, it may feel we are in a race to the bottom to produce milk as cheaply as possible. However, as long as we keep latching our gates a thousand different ways, I argue there is still plenty of room for competition and profitability through minivation.
Trent Dado, MSc, works with GPS Dairy Consulting, LLC serving dairies as an independent dairy nutrition and management consultant in the southern and western Wisconsin regions. He has years of on-farm and feed industry experience which grant him the ability to provide a holistic approach to farm-specific goals.
