Services
services
We provide an array of practical services for DQ PROGRAM customers who operate commercial feed mills or integrated farms. Our expertise includes animal nutrition, feed mill management, animal husbandry, feed sales training and support, and financial analysis.
We call our approach:
Of course we promptly respond to our DQ customers’ requests for help. But what really distinguishes the Dawe’s program is our initiating services. We study our customers’ operations to identify opportunities to improve efficiency. When we do what we do best, our customer considers our team his chief business consultant.
We formulate best-cost plans of nutrition. We help set standards, select and source raw materials. Our staff conducts training sessions for feed production personnel. We help monitor and trouble-shoot feed production. We assist with sales training, advertising and promotion. We accompany our customers’ sales personnel when they call on their customers and prospects. On the farm, we help producers with issues of care and management.
Our services are tailored to the needs of our customer and included in his specific DQ PROGRAM. Among our complimentary services are:
Our staff reviews the feed milling operations of DQ customers. Often that leads to a suggestion or two to improve efficiency or save money. Sometimes it leads to more…
A new DQ customer is entitled to a full inspection of his plant. In this picture, our feed-milling specialist evaluates the equipment in one plant using DQ fortifiers.
A typical inspection takes several hours to complete.
After returning to the office, our feed-milling specialist organizes his observations and suggestions. Then our office staff assembles a Feed Mill Quality Control Manual specifically for that customer.
A QC Manual usually includes 10-15 sections, and 50 or more pages. Sections include specifications for raw materials, protocols for manufacturing and storage, sampling schedules, regulatory issues, record forms, and various standard operating procedures.
When the QC Manual is ready, our Regional Manager reviews the contents with our customer’s feed mill foreman. On subsequent visits, our staff will review record keeping, and perform on-going trouble-shooting.
Measuring performance against goals is a key to optimizing live production. Our Regional Managers and Technical Service nutritionists help create clear, practical means to monitor production results…
Our Regional Manager reviewed with a DQ TURKEY grower his payment and bonus system. Then they collaborated on designing a Flock Report to highlight the performance factors that most affect our customer’s bottom line. Together they and our Technical Service staff review results as the birds grow and are marketed.
Many DQ customers are commercial feed mills or independent consultants. We assist in their efforts to broaden their own customer bases…
A good customer of ours is an independent dairy consultant, who balances his clients’ rations using DQ DAIRY. As a DQ customer, he’s entitled to complimentary program services. One day he mentioned to his Dawe’s Regional Manager that he had a prospect who milked 350 Holsteins, and whose business he had been trying to gain for some time. Our Regional Manager (“RM”) offered to accompany him on his next visit to the prospect’s dairy farm.
The prospect welcomed our customer and our RM and gave them a tour, beginning with the free stall barn. Our RM noted mentally how many of the cows were eating at the bunk and how well they were cleaning up their feed; how many cows were away from the bunk, resting, and how many were chewing their cuds.
To the RM’s eye, the barn’s ventilation was satisfactory and the cows’ condition appeared fair enough, but their weights were less than optimal for that stage of lactation.
Next the men visited the dry cow pen. Here our RM was struck by the ration: Virtually no grain, and little silage, was being fed. The diet seriously lacked energy. Essentially the feed was poor quality grass hay that smelled musty.
Our RM suggested raising the energy level of the dry-cow ration two to three weeks before calving. He encouraged the dairyman to increase silage and to use better quality forage. If feeding is inadequate in the dry cow pen, the RM said, cow condition at calving won’t be what it should be, and the cow will be incapable of achieving her potential for peak milk production.
The tour continued, with our RM noting that the calves looked fine; and all the other facilities and equipment seemed to be in good shape.
It was a hot day. The three men summarized the three-hour tour, drinking lemonade under a shade tree. The dairyman admitted his dry-cow feed was not a very good ration, but he did not want to waste some of the feedstuffs he had on hand.
Our RM complimented the dairyman on his top-notch facility. He encouraged him to match the quality of the diets to the quality of the facilities, and to begin by improving the dry-cow feed. The dairyman listened, but was non-committal.
Then, two days later, the dairyman called our customer to tell him he was going to start not only on our customer’s dry-cow rations, but on all the feeds needed for his operation.
In reviewing the episode, our RM said, “Essentially I added two items of value on this call. First, my approach was systematic: I assumed nothing and made sure to take enough time to examine the entire operation. Second, I was really just telling the dairyman what he himself already knew to be true about his dry-cow feed. Sometimes it takes a stranger to get you past that tipping point.”
When a DQ customer considers new capital projects, we often assist with pro forma cash-flow projections…
A customer of ours–well-established as a commercial feed mill–purchased a commodity shed several counties away. He expected to operate the shed initially at a loss, as he staffed and stocked it. By the end of the 1st quarter, losses did amount to over $35,000.
During the 2nd quarter, a nearby elevator came up for sale. Our customer believed eventually there could be profitable synergies between the two facilities. He purchased the elevator, knowing that it too would operate at a loss, for some time.
He asked us to forecast the shortfall from the combined operations, using practical assumptions. When would the shortfall peak? When might each facility break even? When might cash begin to reduce, and finally eliminate, the cumulative deficit?
As a DQ FORTIFIER customer, his company qualified for PROGRAM SERVICES. We were pleased to help him out. We surveyed the beef and dairy populations of the region and conservatively projected market share growth, based on competitors’ pricing, our customer’s costs, and his available staff. We assumed feed consumption and growth rates that our formulated feeds were already producing for cows, weanlings, background operations and feedlots.
At the practical rates of growth projected, the cumulative cash shortfall was forecast to peak at the end of the 4th quarter, and recovery of that funding was estimated to occur during the 9th quarter.
As it turned out, our financial analysis was helpful. Of course there were many “ups and downs” that deviated from the projections. But through the hard work of his staff and himself–and with our assisting behind the scenes and in the field–our customer’s expansion is profitable today, and paying dividends.