Applying Lean Thinking to the Dairy Industry

The UK dairy industry collectively - farmers, processors, manufacturers and their customers in retail and foodservice - is wasting £1.5bn. Big savings could be realised if the industry applied some simple approaches to business improvement and developed better business relations along the supply chain.

This conclusion has been reached after the application of a pilot programme conducted over the last 4 years by the Food Chain Centre using a method known as 'lean thinking'. This work was done in partnership with Cardiff Business School and formed one part of the Food Chain Centre.s programme to test business improvement methods and new ways of working across the agrifood industry.

In this report we:

• Demonstrate how wasteful activities that cost time and money can be identified in dairy supply chains;

• Identify generic issues faced by the dairy industry;

• Provide potential solutions that can be adopted to realise savings.

BUSINESS AREA:
Collaboration