Turning Opportunity Into Profit

有时，机会落入您的腿；其他时候，您必须寻找它。JBS United Inc.西伊利诺伊州谷物部门的发展就是这种情况。从成功采用连续改进计划到与当地饲料厂建立独特的合作伙伴关系，该谷物终端并没有停止创新。

1998年,谢里丹的JBS联合公司,一个ternational feed nutrient and grain marketing corporation, acquired a rail terminal in Griggsville, IL. In the beginning, the elevator was modest, operating one dump pit in the middle of an open field. At the time loading 50-car trains must have seemed like a pipe dream; however, being set in an ideal location — a fertile area chalked full of high-volume producers — with an empty canvas, set the stage for growth… and grow it did.

The terminal’s successful and dramatic expansion — and implementation of serious process improvements — can in part be attributed to the inspiration Tom Hurd, JBS United’s grain division’s chief operating officer, found in the management bookGood to Great吉姆·柯林斯（Jim Collins）。

As a result, this unit train loader facility on the Norfolk-Southern line has grown from a 4,000-bushel/hour to 70,000 bushel/hour handling operation in less than a decade.

成功的工具

“After reading the book, it became clear that once we had the right people on the bus, the sky was the limit for Griggsville,” Hurd says. Having hand selected a team of industry veterans, many having spent 20-plus years with other large grain elevators, it was time to take on the task at hand.

赫德介绍这本书的“刺猬理念”the Griggsville team. The Hedgehog concept itself consists of a Venn diagram of three overlapping circles, each circle posing a different question: 1) what you are deeply passionate about, 2) what you can be the best in the world at, and 3) what best drives your economic engine.

“The Hedgehog concept provided a very simple way to communicate our mission and the goals of the organization to all employees,” Hurd says.

After taking an objective look at the facility and its potential, management evaluated the needs of the operation based on these three questions, and drew solutions from their collective experiences. After brainstorming, the group had created an outline of improvements and a strategy for implementing them.

“我们真的把自己放在农民的座位上：当他开车进去时，他的经历是什么？”赫德说。“最终，我们认为我们的目标是成为该地区最快的卸货者。”

A lofty goal indeed, but one JBS United felt could be achieved if the collective energy of the terminal’s employees was focused on providing this level of service to its customers.

Hurd explains how it works in practice: “Everybody on our team understands that everything we do is meant to increase our ability to unload — this goes for our capital expenditures, management decisions, grain accounting systems, operations at the scale — it becomes part of the decision making process of everything that we do.”

As operational changes are made, constant evaluation provides the checks-and-balances necessary to ensure the company is moving in the right direction.

“As we continue to upgrade and expand our facility, we go back and ask ourselves, ‘How will this fit into our hedgehog concept?’” says Randy Bleich, western Illinois region manager division. “Sometimes we’ve had to tweak things a bit so they do fit in with the concept.”

Admitting when you’re wrong and adjusting accordingly is a critical part of this process.

For example, recently the company changed accounting software providers. Unfortunately, after trying to work within the new system they realized they had “taken them back a few steps” — and the producers “let us know about that.” Acknowledging this pursuit had failed, JBS United’s grain division went back to the old system.

“In order to remain successful, we continue to fine tune our process,” Hurd says. “If we see something occurring that’s slowing things down we jump on it and correct it.”

Armed with this knowledge and a firm game plan, it was time to put it into action.

Becoming the fastest unloader

JBS first focused on streamlining truck management at the entryway.

Bleich解释说：“我们希望允许制片人抛弃谷物并尽快回到场地。“我们想，‘如果这样做，他们会来的。’”

Since the bottlenecks always originated at the scale, the first step to increasing throughput was the addition of an outbound scale. JBS United merchandiser Dale Plumer explains, “Now that we have an inbound and outbound traffic line we have eliminated the dumping back log.”

探针处的停车灯有助于控制交通流量。JBS联队比尺度上的三到四辆卡车探测了三到四辆卡车，到车辆达到规模时，谷物已经被分级。探测和分级后，一个数字标志随后闪烁一个坑号，指示卡车前往该航站楼的五个垃圾场之一 - 三卷15,000蒲式耳/小时坑和两个12,000蒲式耳/小时坑。

The result: Trucks move through in less than five minutes. “Most elevators in the area are not able to turn a truck around that fast,” Bleich says. “For us, it’s just how we want to take care of the customer.”

The grain is then tracked internally from the probe to the bin. Under the guidance of Dave Crim, the operations manager for the three Illinois facilities, the parameters of each bushel is set and tracked by bin so JBS United can easily and accurately load rail cars to the customer’s specifications.

Today JBS United-Griggsville can process more than 500 trucks a day during harvest.

“Even in the gut slot of harvest, there is very little wait for farmers in comparison to other terminals during that time,” Hurd says. “That’s our advantage.”

Staying true to its “fastest unloader” mantra has given the Griggsville facility a corner on its market. In addition to Griggsville, the company operates three additional western Illinois locations: Pittsfield, New Canton, and the TMI feed mill elevator. JBS United’s market area spans 60 miles, covering all of Pike Country and reaching into Adams, Brown, Green and Calhoun County.

“In 2008, over 22 million bushel of corn was produced in Pike County; and JBS United handles over half of that in a year’s time,” says Plumer.

JBS United also operates a 100-car shuttle loader on the Union Pacific railroad eastern Illinois grain region called the Busboom region, located in Royal, Collison and Rossville.

Maximizing throughput capacity

Having the luxury of excess land to expand its operations was one of the facility’s key advantages in its quest to improve efficiency.

“在过去的10到15年中，足迹发展了，” Bleich说。“我们很幸运，有足够的土地来扩展；由于太空的限制，许多电梯没有这个机会。”

Over the course of four years, the main additions aiding in the growth of the Griggsville terminal included: adding two dump pits; extra storage capacity; the addition of an outbound scale; and placing the probes far ahead of the inbound scale.

The Griggsville facility has 6.6 million bushels of upright storage with an additional 2.3 million bushels of storage capacity available in its temporary storage bunkers; it handles and stores corn (65%), soybeans (30%) and wheat (5%).

Equipment upgrades are an integral part of sustaining success. Recent investments include a 1 million bushel temporary storage bunker that is filled with an overhead coveyor in 2008; and then expanded it an additional 700,000 bushels last year, bringing JBS United-Griggsville’s temporary storage capacity to 2.3 million.

今年夏天，JBS United-Griggsville计划安装新的Zimmerman烘干机。虽然其当前的干衣机每小时处理5,000蒲式耳，但新的干衣机将增加7,000蒲式耳/小时的干燥能力。赫德说：“很快，我们将使我们的干燥能力超过12,000蒲式耳/小时，因此我们应该能够有效地处理下一次收获带来的一切。”

互惠伙伴关系

In addition to the internal adoption of the Hedgehog Concept, JBS United has sought out external productivity-enhancing opportunities.

2005年，JBS联合客户The Maschhoffs是美国最大的家族猪肉生产网络之一，在伊利诺伊州皮茨菲尔德购买了旧的Tate和Lyle Feedmill。当马斯乔夫（Maschoffs）胜过匹兹菲尔德工厂时；该公司决定在Griggsville附近建造一个新的饲料和谷物接收设施。

“由于[JBS United]一直是[Maschoffs]唯一起源玉米的供应商，因此我们决定在我们发现他们将建造新的饲料架和电梯时，要探索共同合作伙伴关系的所有可能性，”说。“由于我们在过去六年中建立了良好的工作关系，因此我们认为可能有很好的可能性来为新的饲养场发起。”

In 2009 The Maschoffs’ opened its 1.6 million bushel grain receiving facility. Unique to their business model, JBS United leases The Maschoffs’ new grain elevator and originates the grain coming into it – but The Maschoffs’ employees operate the facility. Under the grain origination contract, JBS United is the sole supplier of grain to The Maschoffs’ Griggsville facility.

“生产者直接向他们交付，就像是JBS联合的另一个行动一样；我们向农民付款，然后从我们那里购买它。”赫德说。“这是一种独特的操作方法，因为[Maschoffs]通过[JBS United]购买了所有通过[Maschoffs]的谷物 - 但我们不运行电梯。”

Brett Roe, associate director of ingredient purchasing and feed order management with The Maschoffs, explains: “We simply communicate our needs with [JBS United] and buy x-amount of bushels a week and they designate The Maschoff’s as a destination point to the producers,”

Once The Maschoffs’ feedmill is up and running in June, the grain JBS United procures will be used in the new mill. (See sidebar on page XX to read about The Maschoffs new feedmill.）

赫德描述了创建“三间的伙伴关系e-way benefit” between the area producers, The Maschoffs and JBS United.

“The way it’s set up is good for everybody,” Hurd says. “Forming a partnership with a major end-user in the area has created synergy between [JBS United] divisions.”

Meanwhile, JBS United and The Maschoffs benefit because they are not competing against each other for grain, affecting the profits of both companies and increasing volume at a lower cost.

他解释说：“对于生产商来说，他们可以运送到[Maschoffs]设施或该地区的其他三个JBS联合设施中的任何一个。”“无论他们选择将谷物储存用于延迟定价，还是将其放入商品计划中 - 在交付谷物的情况下，他们将收到我们的支票。这是一站式商店。”

Local producers also cut their transportation costs because there is now another outlet to consume an extra 3 million bushels of corn in the area.

Roe说：“我们带来的好处是JBS United的另一个目的地。”“您的基础设施只会支持太多，我们对基础设施进行了投资，以使他们在不对垃圾箱，坑或人员进行投资的情况下将更多的玉米销售。这是他们有机会进入另一个带有湿收成的干衣机的机会，这是获得另一个干衣机的巨大好处。”

The consensus: It’s been a win-win for everyone involved. “Made sense from both sides, another location for them – worked out well for both parties,” Roe says.

去年秋天，马斯乔夫（Maschoffs）首次填满了电梯，这是成功的“干跑”。

Plumer解释说：“去年的湿玉米确实产生了积压，我们正在努力赶上干燥。这对我们有很大的帮助，因为我们能够使用[Maschoffs] 5,000蒲式耳/小时的GSI烘干机 - 有助于使我们的干燥能力加倍。”

无论公司可以进行的投资如何，任何运营的真正成功都在于员工。JBS United-Griggsville有7名全职员工；并在收获期间旋转四到10个临时员工。

“The strength of any operation is in the people,” Hurd says. “You can have the dumping capacity, as we have at Griggsville, but if the rest of the operation isn’t fine tuned, a backup can occur. We continue to fine tune storage, wet holding, scale and probe times. It all comes down to your people and they just do a tremendous job”

-Jackie Roembke