Practicing What He Teaches

If Aristotle was right, and excellence is a result of what we do repeatedly, Eric Blaha is well on his way to excellence as a business consultant. In his work with manufacturing clients, Blaha specializes in improving productivity, reducing unplanned downtime, and identifying opportunities–including automation–to drive better results.

Not coincidentally, those are the same tactics he uses to boost productivity on the beef cattle farm he operates with his wife. Whether at work with his clients or at home on the farm, Blaha is getting an awful lot of practice improving operations.

Writer Robb Murray’s captures the essence of Blaha’s ethic in a fascinating profile in the winter issue of Enterprise Minnesota® magazine. He shows readers how Blaha works to grow his farming operation while implementing strategies to save time and resources. He also illustrates that Eric’s work in manufacturing helps improve his farming methods while his farming experience adds insight to his work with manufacturing clients.

In many ways, Blaha’s work has given him a decidedly different approach to farming. His quest for farming efficiency, informed by the continuous improvement and lean strategies of manufacturing, has inspired tactics not employed by many modern farmers.

Blaha doesn’t harvest crops and then feed them to the cattle. Instead, he lets the cows trample down on the fields as they eat, then he augments the vegetation by planting more seed, using a special machine that drills the seed deep into the earth. His approach dramatically cuts the time spent and equipment needed to harvest and then plow before planting again, and still results in a vibrant source of food for his cows.

He says the manufacturing goal of only touching things once is on display during wintertime feeding of the cattle. Blaha doesn’t feed them in a barn or a pen. Instead, he distributes his hay bales around his property, allowing the cattle to move to those areas to eat. The cows remain near a group of hay bales–and deposit their waste, a natural fertilizer–until the hay is gone and then move to the next set of hay bales. This system eliminates the time required to move the cows, the feed, and the waste.

Blaha’s farm operation also recently embraced a turn toward automation. Over the course of several months, he dug trenches and ran water lines to areas where the cows drink. The costly up-front investment will save him time in the long run. “The water line was huge,” he says. “I never have to haul water again.”

To read more about Blaha’s farming operation and how it enlightens his consulting work, and vice versa, check out the next issue of Enterprise Minnesota® magazine, scheduled to be published on November 14th.

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