STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION AT THE MILKING ROBOTDAIRY FARM

The milking robot is more than a tool to relieve the farmer of the sub stantial daily work associated with the milking process, Current techn ologies offer the possibility of increasing production efficiency by c ombining individual milking and feeding strategies, Although the milki ng robot call be integrated into any type of dairy its use differs fro m one dairy to another. To benefit from the milking robot not just as a replacement for a milking parlour but as a management appliance the farmer should first outline his strategic planning according to his ne eds and available facilities. On the planning horizon, the strategic p lanning considerations comprise concentrates rationing, grazing (if it exists and with or without indoor forage rationing), herd size and mi lking frequency, facilities and labour, The strategic planning is impl emented and controlled at both operational and performance levels. Con tinuous evaluation of the cows' performance is incorporated into a gro up or individual management regime. The on-line control ensures that t he planned regime is implemented. The implementation of the planned re gime and its control in the milking robot dairy is possible using thre e management functions: milking frequency, individual concentrates all ocation and cow-traffic. The farmer selects his goals according to his operational methods, The degree of system management automation and i ndividuality will determine these methods. The dairy can operate from the basic level of replacing the milkers only, up to a fully-automatic controlled daily milking, feeding and cow traffic routine with minima l involvement of the farmer. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.