With the continuous advancement of greenhouse technology, as well as improvements in plant biotechnology, transportation conditions, and marketing strategies, floriculture has reached a historical peak of operation and competitive intensity.
The global floriculture market is thriving due to consumer demand for cut flowers and personal disposal income. Furthermore, increased government involvement in providing high yield varieties of seeds aided the floriculture industry in fostering global market growth.
Among the major challenges confronting the industry are:
- Inadequate Land Utilization
- Low productivity, which leads to low investment returns.
- In green houses and pack houses, a higher percentage of flowers are rejected.
- Higher rejection as a result of the flower spending more time in the pack house in hot weather.
- Inadequate infrastructure and weather unpredictability
- Obsolete technology and strict international regulations
- Inventory of chemicals and fertilizers
Faber Infinite, one of the best global consulting organizations, has been collaborating with leading flower farms in East Africa to increase competitiveness and return on investment through the application of Operational Excellence and Continual Improvement principles. Here we bring some of the aspects on which Faber Infinite team has been working to deliver exceptional results:
Optimum Land Utilization
Almost every farm wastes land due to poor layout design at the outset, which could be converted into productive land with proper layout and planning. Team Faber has been working closely with their clients to improve flower production by identifying useful land and investigating its effectiveness, transforming non-productive land into productive land.
Enhancement of Quality
Flower farms have two flashes each year, and it is common for the second flash to have higher rejection levels and lower production than the first flash, which is known as the Variation or Gap between two flashes. Finally, there are alternatives such as developing proper layout and land utilization models, followed by logistical improvements that reduce input distribution costs.
Pack house flow improvement
The flow of flowers is usually very important in a packhouse because it affects the quality of the flowers due to the warm conditions of the packhouse. As a result, the goal of each pack house is to improve the flow so that the flowers move as quickly as possible from the pack house to the cold store after packaging.
Team Faber Infinite improved the flow of flower after packaging by modifying the flow with operational excellence tools. One of our clients was able to reduce the flower flow time after packaging from 14 minutes to 30 seconds thanks to the efforts of Team Faber!
Reduction in rejection
Rejects received in pack house from greenhouses are a major concern, reducing export and increasing handling in the pack house. To reduce rejections, Team Faber infinite employs a variety of quality control tools. We reduced the rejection percentage at one of our African clients from 3.5 percent to 1.4 percent, increasing the exportable stems.
Our expert consultants at Faber Infinite Consulting have thus, delivered many successful stories in flower farm transformation and is continuing to deliver even more. Contact us to know more about our deliverables in Operational Excellence at Faber Infinite .
Written & Compiled by Faber Aleena
