One way of generating effective solutions is to assemble a team of trusted members of your staff, family and suppliers to investigate any new possibilities that might be available to your operation. By allowing open input from a variety of sources, a solution often emerges that is greater than any one individual on the team might have created. Here are some actions you can take to optimize the performance of your team: • Meet away from the farm. This is as easy as renting a meeting room in a local hotel. (And turn the cell phones off!) The few hundred dollars that may be necessary to rent the room will be returned many times over with the increased productivity of your meeting.

Whether you are expanding or simply renovating an existing facility, a detailed feasibility study may save you thousands of dollars and hours of time. However, before getting into the details of the feasibility of a specific project, it is usually quite helpful to conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis on the current production system. This SWOT should evaluate facilities, financial conditions and management concerns. The findings of the SWOT analysis can then be compared with the expected outcomes of competing projects to determine the priority of projects considered.