MEASURING PRODUCTIVITY: PER ROBOT, PER COW, TOTAL MILK SOLD

For the past month, I have been visiting with farmers to learn what successful robotic dairies have in common. First, we had to answer, “What is a successful robotic dairy?” Predictably, most of the dairies I visited said they measured success in terms of net profit. When I followed up by asking what drives net profit, most of them cited high milk production. There are exceptions, like production quotas, specialty markets, and least cost production models. There is a point of diminishing returns, when an extra dollar spent to produce more milk does not return a dollar’s worth of increased production. Those that maximize profit with high milk production measure it in terms of total milk sold, milk per robot, or milk per cow.

I heard the phrase “Milk out the door” more than once. That makes sense, because total production and price determine how much dairies get paid. Total milk sold is an easy year-to-year comparison, and it accounts for scale. High production per cow with too few cows, or high production per robot with too few robots, will not pay the bills. Cow Corner weekly reports have focused on production per cow and production per robot from the start. I recently put total production front and center to verify that per cow, and per robot improvements are maximizing performance of the whole system. Total production tells us whether the bucket is getting full, but it doesn’t tell us much about how it got full. We need different measures for that.

Milk per robot is the next step. The robots are often the biggest single capital investment in

the system. They may be the most limiting part of the system, and everything else is structured around making the robots work efficiently. In most cases, return per robot is maximized when milk per robot is maximized. Milk per robot is consistent whether the goal is to milk 60 cows at 100 pounds per cow or 75 cows at 80 pounds per cow. Industrywide, average production per robot is about 5,000 lbs. Many farms produce 6,000 pounds per robot and there are elite herds at over 7,000 pounds per robot. You can increase milk per robot by increasing cows per robot, or by increasing milk per cow, but you have to work within the capacity of the robot. Some farms have prioritized milk per cow over milk per robot by adding robot capacity to make sure a cow always has a robot available. Milk per robot is lower, but total milk sold is higher.

Milk per cow is the time-honored unit of production. This standard doesn’t change whether cows are milked in parlors or robots. We can analyze milk per cow to look for specific opportunities like higher peaks, or more successful transitions. We can compare lactation groups. We can even modify milk per cow to fit current market conditions with energy corrected milk, or combined fat and protein. Increasing milk per cow is usually the best opportunity to increase total milk. Milk per cow provides insights that can be used to increase total milk.

Total milk, milk per robot, and milk per cow are all useful measures of production. Total milk is valuable for planning and budgeting – is the farm producing enough milk to pay the bills? – but it does not give any insights for producing more. Milk per cow and milk per robot provide actionable insights that can be compared to benchmarks and used to increase total milk, but they don’t give any indication whether the increase will impact total farm profitability. Using all 3 together is a key to maintaining profitability.