Innovation has finally reached the least likely place you would expect to find it – the family dairy farm.
When you think of a dairy farm, most likely you don’t think of technology involving robots, artificial intelligence, and tablets brimming with data on each cow.
While employing innovative technology in dairy farming is more commonplace in China and Europe, is it now reaching the United States.
The company that is providing these innovative technologies to a farm in Georgia is named DeLaval, and its aim is to increase milk production, improve animal welfare, and enhance the profitability of dairy farms.
Among other steps, this Georgia family dairy farm has been applying innovation to their operation by using robotic milkers that are guided by cameras and artificial intelligence to locate the udder and properly place the milking cups.
A Spa for Cows
In addition to the above, to induce the cows to enter the milking chute, the stainless-steel robotic milkers provide a 
treat for the milking cow, a sweet, high-starch feed, which is kind of like candy to a cow.
Using automatic rolling brushes, the cows also get a quick massage to make the milking experience even more enjoyable.
Because a cow’s legs are so important, innovative technology allows a farmer to lift a 1,300-pound cow for a hoof pedicure and leg massage.
Ensuring the cows stay healthy, they lounge on beds of cleaned and sanitized sand in the barn for most of day, and even walk to milking area on comfortable rubber matting.
Each cow wears a bovine equivalent of a Fitbit around its neck, which combined with the information from the robotic milker, and cameras coupled with artificial intelligence, provide the farmer all the health, nutrition, and milk production information they need.
The owner of the farm feels his operation is more like a spa for cows than a dairy farm. He said, “You want to leave them alone and let cows be cows. That is the beauty of the system, we are not forcing them to do anything”.
Why Dairy Farmers Are Turning to Technology
But why are dairy farmers turning to this use of technology?
For the past number of years, dairy farming from an economic standpoint has been a very challenging pursuit, and family dairy farms have been ceasing operation at an alarming rate.
As a result of low milk prices and competition from other “milk beverages” like almond, soy, and oat “milk”, 40% of dairy farms in Georgia have shut down in the last decade.
Studies show that cutting costs, reducing workers, and improving production can increase the efficiency of a dairy operation and make them more profitable.
All of the innovations DeLaval is employing to accomplish the above for dairy farmers started out just as ideas, but then the company worked to translate them into actual innovations.
My past several articles have focused on how to get your employees thinking about innovative ideas.
But once the ideas have been submitted how does a company evaluate them to determine which ones are commercially viable?
Innovation Authorities
A preferred method of idea evaluation involves putting personnel in place to evaluate and determine the idea’s next 
step. This approach insures the proper flow of ideas through an organization.
This role can be fulfilled by an individual, team, or committee, all of which we call an Innovation Authority.
These Innovation Authority individuals or groups, who can either have a standing or ad-hoc role, are given a charge to develop a portfolio of innovations within a certain area of the company.
For instance, Ameriprise, the financial services company, has over 30 of these areas, and Hewlett-Packard Enterprises has over 50 areas. Because of the critical role of Innovation Authorities, they must possess unique and detailed knowledge in their specific area of responsibility to be able to evaluate ideas that are presented to them.
Innovation Authority Responsibilities
The Innovation Authority role also includes innovation champions or sponsors who play the key role of fostering the development of ideas or innovations throughout the organization.
Properly designed innovation pipeline management software uses the attributes of submitted ideas to route them to the appropriate Innovation Authority who functions as a “collector” in the system that is in charge of a specific area of innovation for the organization.
The Innovation Authority then makes the critical decision to accept, reject, incubate, or dispatch the idea to other Innovation Authorities for their input, or to collaborate with them on ones that encompass multiple innovation areas.
The system the Innovation Authority is using should also allow for the grouping or combining of similar or related ideas and the formation of teams to collaborate on the submission or further appraise it.
Ideas can pass through various evaluation processes including “crowd-cheering” actions that can include the submission of comments, ratings, likes, follows, or joining a team to work on the submitted idea. Ideas that are top vote-getters are then pursued.
Where to Start
A system needs to be implemented to facilitate the evaluation of submitted ideas. The assessment of ideas should be accomplished by knowledgeable, Innovation Authorities in the organization.
However, these Innovation Authorities need to be trained how to effectively evaluate and nurture submitted ideas. The implementation of this assessment process will greatly aid the functioning of an innovation pipeline management system.
Alternatively, a crowd-cheering approach can be used where ideas are posted for all employees to vote on or “cheer” for the idea.
If you could use assistance with implementing an effective system for evaluating and moving ideas from the initial stage on to commercialization, please contact us using the information below so we can be a resource to you in this all-important area.
Fountainhead Consulting Group, Inc. is an Innovation and Business Planning firm. During the past 17, years we have shown over 1,200 companies how to achieve their goals by using our unique, comprehensive, and systematic FastTrak Innovation Program™, Innovation Academy™, and Structure of Success™ methodologies. Using the components in these methodologies, each month we examine an aspect of how to transform your business or organization into a true 21st Century enterprise.
Office: (770) 642-4220
www.FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
George.Horrigan@FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
Tags: entrepreneur, front end of innovation, innovation, invention, small business consulting, small business planning, start a business
