Production modelling – supply chain and capability

Summary

The Sheep Flagship Project identified opportunities and capacity for growth in the WA sheep industry, specifically for export markets, as a sustainable global competitor. The production capacity along the entire supply chain was assessed in order to measure industry capacity for growth.

This information allowed for the development of strategic supply chain options and the evaluation of the cost, reliability and feasibility of these options.

Objectives

The flagship project aimed to achieve the following objectives:

• build the V&V Walsh sheep supply chain into a sustainable asset as part of a new globally competitive value chain
• support development of the WA lamb production base to meet V&V Walsh's immediate growth needs
• identify barriers to industry development and establish intervention strategies to help build and align required capabilities
• quantify the production capability of the states sheep production resources
• transfer of value chain learnings to support a wider industry vision for growing competitive value chains.

Key findings

The options selected for further development and assessment into scenarios:

• increasing existing production capacity
• diversifying markets for live export specifications
• changing turn off times for increased value
• increasing reproduction rates.

Increasing the reproductive rate of sheep and using latent capacity are the two most beneficial options, resulting in an industry value benefit of $86.9 and $46.9 million respectively.

Benefits to industry

The combined financial benefit of all the scenarios developed through this project is well in excess of $300 million. The recommendation is therefore to implement all scenarios in a combined fashion to realise the maximum benefits.