Danny: Live a Culture of Continuous Improvement
posted on Thursday, October 6, 2022
.jpg)
“I’m always trying to listen to my supervisors and managers who have been working longer than I have,” said Danny Lamb, Gravity gilt development unit (GDU) manager. They have lots of knowledge and wisdom that I use at my farm. I can build on that knowledge further with the feedback I get from reviews and audits.”
In his six years at Iowa Select Farms, Danny prioritized continuous improvement. He works hard to improve his farm, and some of his most essential tools in that effort are the production well-being and biosecurity assessments the company conducts each year.
Over 160 of these robust and unannounced internal biosecurity assessments were held in 2021. They are specially tailored to our standard operating procedures to maintain and improve the quality of care given to our animals and ensure proper biosecurity measures are in place to keep them healthy. These assessments help drive our culture of continuous improvement in animal care, and Danny is an excellent example of someone who lives out that culture of improvement every day.
“Danny is very meticulous regarding the care of his farms,” said Randy Hosfield, Danny's supervisor. “He closely follows the biosecurity protocols and goes above and beyond when he cleans and disinfects the shower room each day after everyone has entered the site. His site is probably one of the cleanest and most organized sites I visit.”
This dedication to biosecurity and improvement that Danny exemplifies has qualified his site to participate in four different PRRSv (Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus) studies. These critical projects allow the swine industry to learn more about keeping our pigs healthy and provide even more opportunities for Danny to get feedback from external sources to continue improving his farm.
“When you’re working with the animals almost every day, you might miss the things that you are used to,” he explained. “When different people come in to assess your site, you’re able to get a fresh set of eyes on everything. They are great at spotting the things we would miss otherwise. Even though Gravity is a smaller farm, we like to use our reviews to compete with the others in our category, but at the end of the day, it's all about improving our animal care.”
Subscribe to our newsletter: Get fresh articles delivered straight to your inbox.
Subscribe