Technical efficiency in dairy farms

A Systematic Review on Lean Applications' in Emergency Departments

This article presents the state of the art of Lean principles applied in Emergency Departments through a systematic literature review. Our article extends previous work found in the literature to respond to the following questions: (i) What research problems in emergency departments can Lean principles help overcome? (ii) What Lean approaches and tools are used most often in this environment? (iii) What are the results and benefits obtained by these practices? and (iv) What research opportunities appear as gaps in the current state of the art on the subject? A six-step systematic review was performed following the guidance of the PRISMA method. The review analysis identified six main research problems where Lean was applied in Emergency Departments: (i) High Waiting Time and High Length of Hospital Stay; (ii) Health Safety; (iii) Process redesign; (iv) Management and Lessons Learned; (v) High Patient Flow; (vi) Cost Analysis. The six research problems’ main approaches identified were Lean Thinking, Multidisciplinary, Statistics, and Six Sigma. The leading Lean tools and methodologies were VSM, Teamwork, DMAIC, and Kaizen. The main benefits of applying Lean Principles were (a) reductions in waiting time, costs, length of hospital stay, patient flow, and procedure times; and (b) improvements in patient satisfaction, efficiency, productivity, standardization, relationships, safety, quality, and cost savings. Multidisciplinary integration of managers and work teams often yields good results. Finally, this study identifies knowledge gaps and new opportunities to study Lean best practices in healthcare organizations.

Bull efficiency using dairy genetic traits

Dairy bulls are evaluated using progeny data and genomic testing to determine the quantity of specific traits that they will pass to their daughters. Some bulls excel in some traits but not others. Specifying these various traits as outputs, with the single input of insemination, technical, revenue, allocative, and profit efficiency of bulls available for artificial insemination are estimated using Free Disposal Hull. Although bulls generally are highly technically efficient, because only high performing bull semen is offered for sale, bulls are less revenue, allocative and profit efficient. These efficiencies are relative to peer bulls and can be updated as new bulls become available.

Analysing the determinants of technical efficiency of dairy farms in Brazil

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the determinants of technical efficiency (TE) in dairy farms located in the South of Brazil, aiming for a better understanding of the topic for academics, dairy farmers and policymakers to improve the productivity and competitiveness of dairy farms.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was developed using a two-stage approach. Data envelopment analysis was used to estimate the TE level and regression models to understand the factors affecting TE in dairy farms. The sample size is 253 dairy farms in the South of Brazil.

Findings

The variation in the mean TE indexes reported in the literature can be explained by the attributes of the analysed studies, including the education of the farm operator, farm size (number of cows and milk), feed and labour costs, and use of services. Additionally, the results suggest that dairy farmers in the sample could increase milk output by 50.1 per cent (level of inefficiency) on average if they improve their TE.

Originality/value

This study makes three important contributions: first, it formulates hypotheses from the previous literature’s propositions on the estimation of TE in dairy farms; second, it tests the hypotheses in an empirical study to understand the main factors affecting the TE in dairy farms of the selected municipalities in the South of Brazil; and third, it compares previous findings on the determinants of TE in dairy farms serving different stakeholders, such as researchers, farmers and government representatives, to improve the productivity and competitiveness of dairy farms.