Brandon Osborn, with MetaFarms, can remember not that long ago when one of his high school teachers told him we’d never have hand-held computers. Now, nearly everyone carries a cell phone with capabilities far beyond what anyone would have imagined 20 years ago.
“Cell phone made our lives easier but the revolution is what it did to the human work force,” Osborn says. “Our source of information is right in our hand.”
That’s just one example of the evolution and revolution of technology. The pork industry is experiencing the same revolution, but obstacles still exist, Osborn says.
“A lot of trendy tech words are in conversations we’re having with clients on a day-to-day basis but there are steps that need to be taken to maximize the benefits of technology.”
1. Fundamentals: “Do we have a dataset that’s accessible and actionable?” Osborn asks.
2. Data: The data must be clean and trusted in terms of using it for effective algorithms.
3. Production Gateway: “We can only help with core solutions up to a point,” Osborn says. The gateway is key for ensuring we are connecting all disparate solutions and data throughout the industry.
4. Insights: Analytic solutions in the past have been expensive and hard to manipulate, Osborn says. “We need something in place that connects all the dots and provides a single source of truth.”
5. Predictive/automated analytics: Osborn says customers are asking every day for this tool, but all the fundamentals need to be in place for analytics to be truly effective, and it can get very expensive very quickly. “You’ll need a 360-degree view of your production,” Osborn says.
“We’ve done a good job of bringing our industry along and recording all the data we can…but it’s new to look at data in a way in which it hasn’t been used in the past, by making business decisions off the data.”
Osborn says data companies like his are working to tie it all together by looking at the trends and answer the difficult questions.
He encourages producers to make sure their data is clean and in an accessible form – that’s the first step.
“If you’re going to look at it later it needs to be easily accessible, all in the same place, and trusted,” he says.
