Kilcoy Pastoral Company - Collaborative Innovation Manager (Brad Mathers)

Summary

Kilcoy Pastoral Company (KPC) and Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) agreed to progress to Stage 1 of a Collaborative Innovation Strategy program (CISP) over a three-year period commencing on 1st August 2014 (Refer to projects P.PIP.5005; P.PIP.0437).

The Stage 1 business improvement plan was integrated into the company's overall business strategy and included measurable performance indicators, which identify the contribution of innovation to the bottom line and achievement of key business objectives. Ultimately, KPC's innovation strategy contributed to KPC's long-term competitiveness, sustainability and profitability.  The outcomes of Stage 1 CISP were that the scope of the innovation strategy was significantly broad and included initiatives in the key business areas of:

• Operational efficiency
• Innovation resource planning and people development
• Sustainability (Environment)
• Feedlot/livestock
• Supply chain innovation (including areas such as eating quality; information management; supply chain alignment; through chain assurance)
• Marketing/product innovation - including integration between CISP and Global Marketing Agreement programs as appropriate (separate contractual arrangements are in place for the Global Marketing Agreements)

During the three-year period, a range of current and new strategy development and implementation activities were planned including (but were not limited to):

• Documentation of key objectives and innovation initiatives in each of the above key business areas
• Quantifiable innovation performance targets in each of the key business areas, including the development of baselines and measurement systems to monitor progress against planned objectives
• Development of an innovation skills and resources plan to build KPC's capability to effectively implement the innovation strategies
• Initiatives to support the cultural change required across the business to deliver against corporate innovation objectives

The KPC/MLA Collaborative Innovation Strategy program was jointly managed by the KPC and MLA steering group.  This group was implemented to oversee the program and sign-off on annual plans and periodical go/no go reviews.  The program provided support for one full-time KPC Innovation Manager (considered necessary to support the volume and complexity of R&D/innovation projects covering Stage 1 of the program at 1 x FTE).  KPC identified additional KPC and external personnel were required (KPC in-kind) to deliver the stated objectives as the program evolves.  

The following report details the outcomes of the KPC CISP Stage 1 program with coverage of the following projects:

• P.PIP.5005 - KPC Collaborative Innovation Strategies Partnership program Stage 1
• P.PIP.0437- KPC CISP Innovation Manager (John Coughlan)
• P.PIP.0499 - Evaluating employee skills and capabilities and developing new processes to achieve KPC's business improvement priorities

An independent evaluation was conducted by CKC Services on the skills and capabilities of KPC's workforce and subsequently develop new processes to achieve KPC business improvement priorities. The outcomes of the independent review were to identify KPC's innovation priorities and design of a proposed KPC CISP Stage 2 program.