(SECRET #1) – Systems Thinking – What’s An All-In-One Sheep System?

From the outside a lot of sheep software and technology looks the same, however what’s special about The BreedELITE Sheep System is that it has been purpose built to work together seamlessly as an All-In-One-System.

That means you have a ‘SYSTEM for managing and implementing decisions from your sheep data’, rather than just having another piece of software or technology, that you then have to work out how to integrate into what you are doing.

The BreedELITE Sheep System combines the market leading pedigree and performance recording sheep software with rugged EID technology to streamline your sheep farm and help you get control of your sheep data, leading the industry.

Is an all-in-one sheep system right for you? We’ll cover everything you need to know to help you decide.

Benefits of owning an All-In-One Sheep System

Opting for an All-In-One-System provides you with a number of benefits including:

• Sheep Data Always In One Place: To have information for making better decisions all your sheep data must be in one place. With an All-In-One-System all the data is always stored in the BreedELITE Sheep Software meaning you have real time in yard analytics and there is no reliance on you to manage data across multiple devices and sessions.

• Faster Learning Curve: Everything is controlled by the software and designed for sheep farmers and the jobs you are wanting to do. This means that you only have to learn one system rather than multiple different pieces of software and technology.

• Avoid Technology Ceilings: When piecing together a system for your sheep farm it is easy to create a technology ceiling (a limitation in the capability of your software or technology that prevents you collecting data or implementing decisions you want to). Often technology ceilings are created because managing data between devices is too time consuming or hard to figure out so you make do with what you have. The biggest cost of technology ceilings isn’t the investment already made in tech that is holding you back, but the missed opportunity where sheep farmers constrain their thinking on what’s possible and hold back the gains that they could be making.

• It’s Scalable:If you aren’t ready for the full system that is fine, start with the industry leading pedigree & performance recording software and then add technology when you need it with confidence that it will all work together.

• Makes Your Life Easier: Systems save you stress, time, energy and money. An All-In-One-System does all of these things by removing the complications that exist when dealing with multiple suppliers and multiple pieces of tech that were never designed to work together.

• Connection Issues Disappear: Too often sheep farmers get a mob of sheep in to start work for the day, only to find out that for some reason tech isn’t connecting or working as it should. With multiple suppliers this can lead to a procession of phone calls to troubleshoot an issue, waste a heap of time, and often result in you resorting to doing a part, or all of it manually.

• Most Jobs Can Be Done By 1 Person: An All-In-One-System allows most jobs you want to do on your sheep farm when collecting data or implementing decisions to be done by one person. This means jobs get done when they should rather than when labour is available.

The alternative is buying software and various pieces of hardware from multiple different businesses which can quickly become so complicated you get stuck.

What we used to have to do (AKA The Old Way)…

Before BreedELITE created the All-In-One-System progressive sheep farmers needed to try and piece together a system themselves. Many have succeeded, but most will tell you that they have ended up with a system that DOESN’T QUITE WORK and is quite reliant on them.

One way to understand why it’s been so difficult, is to measure the complexity of the system. To do this you can look at the Communication Lines in the system that you are responsible for.

When you create a system yourself from multiple suppliers it can quickly get overwhelming. Those that are in it can feel it, things just seem hard, but often you can’t quite see why. The simple diagrams below will help you to understand what is going on.

Let’s start with a simple system that has you and a computer.

In this system there is one communication line you need to manage. You need to interface with the computer to store whatever data you want to put in there. It is a very simple system.

Then lets say you add a sheep software program…

Now there are three lines of communication. So, adding an extra piece of technology/ software actually makes the system 3x more complicated.

Let’s see what happens as we expand this out to add in more tech that a typical Sheep Farmer may want to use…

You can see that we very quickly end up with a system that is 15x more complicated than the initial system you started with. You end up with data being able to be stored on multiple different devices and you are the one responsible for keeping everything working together.

When there is an issue it is often unclear which piece of software or technology is the problem and so you may spend hours being bounced between different support people in various businesses.

This is complicated even further when you realise that the majority of that tech and software actually isn’t designed to connect together. So what is actually going on looks more like this…

YOU ARE THE SYSTEM!!!

The 15 lines of communication all pass through you and the systems success is 100% reliant on you keeping it all together. It can be super challenging and extremely frustrating when you are in this position, especially when something doesn’t work…

The New Way…(AKA: The Better Way)

At BreedELITE we have created An All-In-One System where one company provides a seamless integrated system that is designed to work together in real time giving you the simplest process for data collection and decision making.

The products are designed for sheep farmers and work together seamlessly to help you achieve your data collection or management task for the day.

All data is stored in one place (the software) maintaining the highest level of data integrity and making sure you have information at your fingertips in the yards. You don’t need to spend any time at the end of the day or later on trying to post process data and have the confidence that all your tech will work together to support your goals.

Let’s take a look at how it works:

The key benefit here is that the system remains simple. All of the hardware is controlled by the software and so you don’t need to manage data between devices…it all happens automatically for you.

You control the system rather than being the glue that holds it all together.

This frees up time for you to create new opportunities and identify new possibilities in your sheep farm as well as start with the software and add in more tech as you need it with the confidence it will all work together.

Do you have questions or would you like to discuss your Sheep Technology needs…?

Click here to book in a sheep technology audit with one of our professionals.