Enterprise Architecture: of AchiFarm - Case Study Example

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE CASE STUDY: ARCHIFARM Student’s Name: Code + Course name Professor’s name University City, State Date Task 1.1 Stakeholders and Drivers The stakeholders involved in AchiFarm’s dairy activities include the management of the company, retailers, distributors, the board, animal feed producers, equipment suppliers, farm staffs, and veterinarians. Each stakeholder plays a pivotal role to the successful operation of the company. The management of the company consists of the company’s CEO located at its headquarters in Sydney as well as three Site Managers located at each of the sites of the company. The Site Manager is responsible for directing and overseeing the site’s operations. Farm workers and employees support the Site Manager in carrying out the different roles at the site. Local animal feed producers are responsible for supplying the three production sites with the required animal feed. Equipment suppliers supply the equipment required in the implementation of the automation technologies such as automatic feeding stations and robotic milking stations. Farm staffs are responsible for the use of the equipment and carrying out other farm-related activities after the milking exercise. Veterinarians are responsible for monitoring the health of the livestock and treating the animals when necessary. AchiFarm has identified several goals that it intends to achieve in carrying out its roles. To begin with, the adoption of Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) implied the company’s goal of optimizing the returns of each animal on the farm. AchiFarm also intends to monitor and maintain the performance of its livestock as evidenced by its decision to install sensors. The Farm also uses decision support systems and data analysis tools to ensure the effective handling and feeding of the individual animals. The Farm has also adopted the use of advanced sensor technologies on the ears of the animals to achieve an effective and detailed assessment of the health of the animals. The above measures reveal the three primary goals of the company. They include: To minimize production risk To optimize quantity and quality To scale its operations in order to serve the emerging Asian market (Lockhorst 2012) The automated feeding mechanism is at the center of the operations of the Farm. At the onset, the farm employees give the livestock protein pellets to provide the required protein supplements to the diet of the animals. The automated system has identified a tailor-made portion of the protein supplements that each animal should receive. The automated feeding station controls the entire process by using an antenna to recognize the individual cow based on the transponder attached to the neck of the animal. A connection also exists between the transponder and the milking machine to record the different amounts of milk produced by each cow on a daily basis. The feeding station uses the data on the milk production rates as well as when the cow last had a calf to determine the protein pellets that the animal requires to enhance its milk production (How It Works Team 2015). The system has made it easy to feed, monitor, and improve milk production on the Farm besides enhancing the process of monitoring the health of the animal. This would have been difficult if the farm’s staffs carried out the operations manually. Poor eating habits measured by determining the amount of food remaining on the feeding troughs is also an indicator of the health of the animal. From milk production, distributors transport the milk for wholesale and further processing. In the event that the cow’s eating habits are indicative of poor health, the Site Manager contacts the Veterinarian that conducts a further health assessment on the animal before identifying the appropriate medication or solution to the problem. The staffs on the Farm report to the Site Manager that responds to the issue of concern and reports to the management at the head office. Task 1.2 Business Functions The organizing function is the first essential business function required in the effective implementation of the activities at the Farm. The function is responsible for the establishment and identification of jobs that should be carried out on the farm, including the appropriate chain of command or reporting structure. This entails facilitating the communication that is essential in making critical decisions at each level of the farm. This includes inventorying financial and physical resources required on the farm, identification of talents and skills among employees on the farm, and the physical arrangement of the identified resources to guarantee maximum utility. The Site Manager is responsible for analyzing the organization of the farm to identify the need for modifying or replacing the organizational structure. It is evident that the organization of the farm is crucial to the communication and delegation of decisions, risk management, and authority (McCorkle & Anderson 2009). In essence, the organizing function ensures the smooth and efficient running of the farm operations. The organizing function provides a pathway for the implementation of the staffing and directing function. The staffing function ensures the effective identification and placement of staffs in various positions while considering their strengths and weaknesses. This ensures the identification of the most suitable personnel to carry out the different roles on the farm. The directing function includes training, evaluating, and dismissal or firing of employees on the farm. Under the function, the Site Manager communicates the expectations of the farm to the employees and narrows down the communication to individual expectations. It also entails giving workers an evaluation of their performance on the farm as well as rewarding good performers (McCorkle & Anderson 2009). Finally, the directing function entails providing a good working environment for the employees of the far. Finally, the controlling function is also essential to the successful implementations of the operations of the farm. It entails measuring the progress of the firm in reference to the set targets and objectives. The Site Manager should collect relevant information that would make it possible to track the performance of the firm. Some of the financial measures that are essential in making critical decisions include the current ratio, debt to asset ratio, acid test ratio, leverage ratio, debt to equity ratio, and turnover ratio. The other ratios include the rate of return on total capital and equity capital, the costs to receipt ratio, the gross ratio, return per unit of production, cost per unit of production, labor cost per production unit, and the net income realized from the farm (McCorkle & Anderson 2009). In the case of the ArchiFarm, the organizing function starts with the head office in Sydney. The head office would set the goals for the three farms and communicate the goals to the Site Managers that would in turn relay the goals to the employees and staffs on the farm. The Site Manager would also report production and operational data on a regular basis to the head office to enable the executives at the head office to use the data in the planning process. An administration office exists in the three sites that is responsible for carrying out site management and HR duties besides organizing contractors for maintenance activities. A separate maintenance unit is present in the largest unit whereas the other units outsource the function. ArchiFarm uses its distributors in the collection and shipment of milk to wholesalers and further processing units. ArchiFarm has also formed agreements with local animal feed producers that supply each of the sites with animal feed. The Farm also collects a variety of information to enable the effective implementation of the controlling function. Some of the data include milk per cow, milk per string, feed fed versus milk sold, voluntary and involuntary cull rate, days open, death rate, maximum daily manure load, sick days per worker, pay rate per worker among other information. Task 1.3 Business Processes The main business processes relevant to livestock management at ArchiFarm include monitoring the health of the animals, monitoring the performance of the animals, feeding the animals, minimizing production costs by enhancing the efficiency of the operations and leveraging on economies of scale in the acquisition of new supplies. The objective of Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) is to enhance production efficiency while improving animal and human welfare through the application of advanced ICTs, precise control of the processes, and targeted resource utilization. In the implementation of the PLF system, it is imperative for a farm to identify the processes that have a guaranteed effect on firm productivity also referred to the business processes. In order for the process to qualify as a business process under the PLF approach to livestock farming, the process should have a guaranteed influence on productivity, sustainability, and profitability (Banhazi et al. 2012). Consequently, the failure of the farm to implement one of the processes would have a substantial adverse effect on the viability of the business venture. A review of the business processes targeted by ArchiFarm reveals the dedication of the Farm towards achieving its goals. This explains why the health of the livestock is at the top of the Farm’s agenda and rationale for the implementation of the PLF strategy. According to the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (2012), the health of an animal has a direct influence on food safety and amount of milk produced. Therefore, ArchiFarm has to monitor and maintain the health of its dairy animals in the quest to guarantee productivity, profitability, and sustainability of its operations. The Farm understands the costs associated with mixing milk obtained from healthy and sick cows. Consequently, there is need to reduce milk contamination as much as possible. The PLF technology is instrumental in achieving the objective. Moreover, ArchiFarm has to compensate distributors in the event that it is unable to provide the agreed quantity of milk to its distributors. Considering the reasons and the fact that the Farm has to reduce production costs, it is imperative that ArchiFarm should adopt the PLF approach to maintain its operations and achieve its objectives. Monitoring the health of the animals depends on the success of the sensors in monitoring the health of the animals. The sensors should be capable of measuring the target characteristics of the cow such as weight changes and activity as well as rumen, blood, and milk parameters (Dairy Australia 2017). The ability of the sensors to accurately gather data on the indicators would determine the success of the system in monitoring the health of the cow. This extends to the monitoring of the performance of the animals since the Farm will use data on milk production. The success of the processes also depends on the ability of the decision support systems and data analysis tools to adjust the handling and feeding of the animals. In essence, the success of the business processes depends on the ability of the PLF technology to meet its objectives since ArchiFarm intends to have an effective animal health management system that is at the center of the success of the business venture (FAO & IDF 2011). Reference List Banhazi, T.M., Lehr, H., Black, J.L., Crabtree, H., Schofield, P., Tscharke, M. and Berckmans, D., 2012. Precision livestock farming: An international review of scientific and commercial aspects. International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, 5(3), pp.1-9. Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST)., 2012. The Direct Relationship between Animal Health and Food Safety Outcomes. CAST Commentary QTA2012-1. CAST, Ames, Iowa. Dairy Australia., 2017. Animal Technologies. Available from: https://www.dairyaustralia.com.au/farm/animal-management/technologies/animal-technologies FAO & IDF., 2011. Guide to good dairy farming practice. Animal Production and Health Guidelines. No. 8. Rome. How It Works Team., 2015. Inside the milk machine: How a dairy farm works. Available from: https://www.howitworksdaily.com/inside-the-milk-machine-how-a-dairy-farm-works/ Lockhorst, K., 2012. ArchiFarm Case Study-Precision Livestock Management in Dairy Farming. McCorkle, D. and Anderson, D.P., 2009. Farm and Ranch Business Management Functions. Read More