Investment Report: Cow Health Monitoring Device for Australian Farms

This report proposes a sustainable investment in a cow health monitoring device for the Australian Dairy Farm Group, featuring 3D and temperature scanners for real-time body condition scoring and health monitoring. The device aims to improve animal health, reduce labor costs, and enhance dairy product productivity. The report includes an internal and external analysis using a SWOT framework, highlighting the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with adopting this technology. It emphasizes the economic, social, and environmental benefits, such as improved product safety, animal welfare, reduced carbon emissions, and enhanced competitive advantage. The report also addresses potential challenges, such as information overload and high initial costs, proposing solutions like government subsidies and proper training. Ultimately, the investment seeks to revolutionize the dairy industry by promoting sustainability and improving the quality and quantity of Australian dairy products.

Executive Summary
The report aims to propose the new sustainable investment of cow’s health monitoring device
to improve the animal health system in Australian Dairy Farm Group. This device has two
main features as a 3D scanner and temperature scanner that can work together at the same
time when the cow walking through the device. Firstly, the 3D scanner analyses the physical
body of the cow and convert the result into the Body Condition Score (BCS) as the number
that tell the amount of muscle and fat covering the cow and the estimation weight that is very
important in managing the feeding program and controlling the cow size and weight. In
addition, the device provides accurate result in real time, uses energy efficient and require
could reduce large amount of labour cost. In contrast, the old scoring methods of BCS in
most farms are perform by highly paid staff with actual eyes. Secondly, the temperature
scanner used the infrared technology, which is touch free to produce the thermal image
showing the different colours indicate different temperature of the cow body parts. The
monitoring of the cow condition, included both physical shape and temperature could
produce massive amount of health data and keeping track of each cow. This information will
be used as the early indicator of most diseases, understanding the animal mood or living
condition; improving the cow health monitoring system of the farm which influenced the
whole dairy product productivity (AgriLand Team, 2016) and the satisfaction of animal
welfare.
While giving this proposal for the dairy farms various economic, social and other conditions
are taken into consideration in which the animals are thriving and how economical it would
be for the dairy owners in term of monetary benefits if they invest in such a new device. The
entire report highlights the present issues that the dairy farmers are facing and how with the
application of the technology their long-term problems can be solved to provide them with
better results. Proper recommendations and conclusion has been given on the long term and
lasting effect of such an experiment on the animals.
1. Introduction
1.1. Financial

1.2. Non-financial (Sustainability)
Sustainable is an investment discipline that considers the social, environmental and economic
effect to generate long-term competitive financial returns and positive societal impact
(Software, 2018). According to GSIA,sustainable investment takes 50% of all professionally
managed assets (Aicd.companydirectors.com.au, 2018). That is to say, as the world's first
automated cow 3D scanner company, this impact investment we seek not only create a
positive social and a financial return and environmental impact but also measuring the effects
of both. Moreover, it is an additional approach to addressing social effects, includes working
condition, products safety, and animals right, and in the same time, it helps out farmers to
maximum profit, and the net revenue will increase 2% per year.
Figure 1 : Sustainability Strategy ( Aron, 2018)
1.2.1. Social
Social effects includes working condition, product safety and animal rights and so on, and
this body scanner all can solve three problems at once.
Firstly, 3D Scanner scans cow's body temperature that takes body condition scores from the
computing system to make sure staffs get the exact measurement of how effective feeding is
on a farm, and it is the key to breading. When the dairy cow is kept in a body temperature
condition score of 3-3.5 prior to calving, the animal can use body reserves to produce milk
without impacting on her fertility. This action is essential, because it decreases metabolic
disease dramatically, which is the common decrease dairy cows have when they are calving

at the same time. Generally speaking, for one thing, it makes sure product safety, while the
system is monitoring dairy cow's body temperatures and health rates all the time. For another,
it makes sure animals rights get respected. Because of using this electronic device, the whole
farmers is supervising under computing system.Every week, it runs reports and data analysis
to monitor every dairy cow in the farm, as a result of it, the health rates of the cow will
increase as well.
In addition, the farmers working condition and working hours are still need to be concerned.
According to Australian Workforce Report that the work of farmers and managers often have
several working issues, such as work hours are frequently long, and they rarely have days off,
and their work goes on throughout the year, dairy cows need to be milked two or three times
a day ,must be fed ,and watered day and night. The most importantly, workers have to
monitor and attend to the health of their herds, (Books.mongabay.com, 2018). Therefore, they
are hard to get away. However, things can be changed if they arrange our 3D Scanner , which
monitors the body temperature of the dairy cows and adjusts the water and food supply
automatically. This revolutionary change will reduce the working hours of labor, as they do
not need to check and feed animals that frequently. Moreover, saving more money, as the
food and water supplied by a certain quantity, and the illness of cows can be found in time so
that the labors' working hours will decrease and the working condition will get improved
without cut off the average wages.
1.2.2. Environmental
Herd for dairy industry often criticized for the major contributor of carbon emission
destroying ozone layer so to stimulate the global warming. By using 3D scanner, it will not
directly solve those problem, however, it could maximise the production so to minimise the
increment of new herd in the farm. First of all, as our scanner intensify the exterior dignosis
to measure the fat of cow, it will help to build the database to measure the right amount of
forrage to minimise the waste. And this will resulting the According to claim from Beck at al.
(2016).
It is also claimed by Penati et al. (2009) that the quality and quantity control of forage
directly affect the quality of milk and its productivity. As our group heading to international
contract stage, higher protein level would be competitive advantage among the farmers.

1.2.3. Economic
Furthermore, this is not only for the liverhood but also for Australian farmers families, the
community and for generations as well. As the first country in the world to adopt body
scanner, the Australian government has prescribed activities that qualify as 3D scanner,
including eradicating hunger, poverty, promoting education and skills, gender equality,
ensuring environmental sustainability, protection of national heritage,setting up technology
institutions and also contribution to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. That is to say, they all
believes that this technology revolution will develop rural economies and enhance the
competitive advantage of the quality and quantity of Australian dairy in the whole global
market.
2. Body - Justification
2.1. Internal & External Analysis
The internal and external analyses of the proposed plan “Adoption of the device with 3D
scanner and temperature scanner feature to monitor the health of the cow” will be analysed
using a SWOT Analysis. There are both key strengths and weaknesses which delve into
internal factors that may affect the investment proposal. The strengths highlight key benefits
that the proposal will bring to the strategic positioning of the Australian Dairy Farmer
company. Likewise, the weaknesses enable the company to identify and understand potential
deficiencies in a very early stage of the investment so that necessary methods can be taken to
mitigate such weaknesses and ensure compliance with the company's vision of corporate
social responsibility.
The proposed plan has vital strengths which enable social, environmental and economic
benefits to be obtained. A 3D scanner that monitors and reports on the health of dairy cows is
a relatively new technology in the Australian Dairy industry. However, such technology has

received massive recognition in many Scandinavian countries. For example, the Swedish
company DeLaval extensively uses a 3D scanner to ensure good health and milk productivity
of the cow (AgriLand Team, 2016). Therefore, through in the introduction of such ground-
breaking technology in the Australian market, Australian Dairy Farmers are provided with a
competitive edge. Especially with additional feature of the temperature scanner, which work
together so well with 3D scanner, technological advancement could also be used as a
marketing strategy to attract new and existing clients and provide assurance that our products
are of the finest quality that no other farm has a device with both features work together. The
increased competitive edge and resulting strong market position would bring forth higher
profits and economic gain.
The sole purpose of the device is to monitor the body condition of the cows to ensure that
they are healthy and fed at an optimal level for proper nourishment. Maintaining a healthy
herd of cows increases the productivity of the milk. Also, healthy cows produce milk that is
richer in nutrition ensuring better health for those members of our society whom ultimately
consumers the milk. Therefore, by monitoring the health of the cows, the company can
benefit both economic and social gains.
Finally, this device also allows farmers to measure optimal feeding quantity for each cow
based on their body conditioning (i.e. weight and height). This ensures that all cows are fed at
proper levels decreasing the chances of over-feeding or malnutrition. Feeding at the optimal
levels ensures the health of the cows as well as minimising fodder waste resulting in
sustainability and environmental benefits which is also in line with corporate social
responsibility.
Moving on to weaknesses, farmers may find that the scanners provide overly complex and
detailed information resulting in information overload. As such, there is an increased chance
that farmers may miss crucial information about a cow’s health. To eliminate this issue, the
scanner needs to be designed to provide only relevant information, and farmers need to be
trained appropriately to analyse, understand and detect crucial information. However, the
quality and relevant data result from the scanner is sometime hard to identify and required
farmer to perform the scanning regularly to make these data useful. For instance of the
temperature scanner aspect, the cow body temperature could change over time due the several

reasons, such as surrounding environment or mood, thus few times temperature scanning
could not use as the indicator of health or any other useful information.
Similarly, the scanner is an emerging technology in the market which means that the cost of
purchasing such equipment is very high and costs of ongoing repairs and maintenance are
also significant. As such, not all individual dairy farm contracted by Australian Dairy
Farmers would be able to afford such expensive technology.
However, such weakness could be resolved through the incentive and subsidies that the
government is proposing for the fiscal year 2018 – 19. As shown below in the graph retrieved
from the government website, the Federal Government in their Fiscal Budget 2018 has
committed to provide about $51.3 million over four years in subsidies to the agriculture and
forestry industry (Commonwealth of Australia 2018, p. 89). The breakdown on the subsidy
amount distributed over four years is represented in the graph below.
These subsidies could be utilised to aid investment in the purchase of these scanners which
would enable dairy farmers to monitor the health of the herds and gain long-term economic,
social and environmental gains.
There are also opportunities and threats arising from external factors that may affect the
business proposal. Whilst the Directors are unable to control such external factors directly,
having sound knowledge of these external factors would enable them to exploit the
opportunities for further growth and bring strategic measures to mitigate the threats.
One of the significant opportunities for development of 3D Scanners is to include a reference
score function which would enable farmers to record optimal body condition for each cow
(Vannieuwenborg, 2017). The optimal body condition would be stored in the system and
used as a reference check against the subsequent body monitoring of the cow. When the
scanner detects a different condition from the optimal condition, it will notify the farmers to

conduct further inspections. This would be a ground-breaking innovation and would also help
mitigate the threat of information overload that is currently prevalent in the scanner.
Likewise, developing a decision support software may allow the scanner to store data and
enable multiple users to access historical information about the cow’s health in real time. It
would be very beneficial for veterinarians, dairy owners and the industry bodies to work
together to keep track of the health of the cows and discover any potential disease outbreak
very early on.
These developments in the existing 3D Scanner with temperature scanner would bring social
and economic benefits as it would provide relevant health information in real time and ensure
that the condition of the cow is detected and attended to more quickly and effectively. Also,
early detection of diseases would ensure that treatment is provided faster for quicker recovery
and prevention of diseases, resulting in less expenditure on health-related issues over the long
term. It would ensure the health of the cows as well as increase milk productivity.
Regarding threats, the most concerning factor is that as the device is very new to the market,
insufficient research has been conducted which focus on the long-term effects of the scanner
(Ohnstad, 2013). Even though researchers assume these technologies have been used
nowaday is safe enough; 3D scanner had been used to scan animal, object, human teeth and
more; temperature scanner had been used at the some airports as the passenger disease
indicator, but there are not much study about the long-term effect. Having said that, the threat
can be mitigated by investing in research and development to review the potential future
harm of these devices, and if any harm is prevalent, adequate measures need to be
implemented to curb the adverse effects. Like in any other technological development,
continuous research and development are necessary to minimise any threats and enhance
innovative opportunities for growth.
To summarise, the SWOT analysis reviews the internal and external analysis and draws our
attention to the fact that the benefits of the 3D Scanner outweigh the weaknesses. Likewise,
there are opportunities for the company to mitigate weaknesses and threats strategically.
Therefore, the 3D Scanner is a strategically innovative and effective investment proposal for
Australian Dairy Farmers to obtain the economic, social and environmental gain.

2.2. External Resources
Market for Dairy Industry
In Australia, Dairy Industry actively contributes to the economic. From a global perspective,
the demand for dairy products is very large, especially in emerging countries. Australia
export 37% of daily product to overseas, which helps Australia daily industry generate 3
billion export revenue, and Australia is the forth daily product export country. In the face of
increasingly globalized competitors, the business should be more efficient and effective so
that the business can be more competitive in the international market. In order to gain the
favor of new consumers, Australian Dairy Farms Group control over the quality of raw
material will once again become the core strategic direction. The cooperative role as a dairy
breeder will be even more important. We will have a strong competitive edge. Our dairy
farmers are efficient, professional, and responsive to the market, and the quality of fresh milk
produced is excellent. Cow healthy monitoring products are the tools help the business to
increase the quality and quantity of the milk and diminishing internal and external failure
costs.
Australian dairy farms group has strong market share and brand value. Currently the
corporate strategies for Australian dairy farms is stability/pause. Continuous improvement
and maintain status will be current objectives for Australian Dairy Farms Group. On March
2018, the business pleased to announce producing baby formula. Capacity management of
daily products are more important than ever before. Overcome bottleneck and increase
throughputs of daily products are the essential task for the business.

Yearly ADFL is 17.8 million L in 2017, by introducing new technology, ADFL will increase
23% to 21.89 million L, which helps business generate $245,955.00 revenue. The initial
investment capital will be $1 million. It will also decrease 9% Subclinical ketosis cost, 10%
feed.
The investment of cow health monitoring is vertical integration. The supplier is DeLaval,
Proposal ROI is 25%. Current Ratio of business of Australia Dairy Farms Group is 2.99.
Assets haven’t been used sufficiently, it’s the good chance to introduce new technology to
enhance the business, and finally benefit to stakeholders in both short term and long-term
period.
The proposed budget are as follows, the business will start making profits from third year.

Operations strategies
Cow healthy monitoring technology is implement in Europe, however, it’s new technology in
Australia market. By introducing new technology, it will helps business to increase brand
value, brand awareness. It’s a good chance for the business to promoting marking area. In
addition, as the introduction of new technology, current employees have chance and
opportunity to learn new knowledge and helps them improving personal ability.
Financing strategies
Despite loan from financial institution is most economical for the business. We are planning
to issue new share to generate 50% funds. It’s the opportunity for shareholders to invest on
Australian dairy farms group.

3. Conclusion
Based on the overall analysis it can be said that with the growth and development in
the overall technological progression there has been tremendous changes in how people were
solving certain issues that in older times seem very hard. The generation of today believes in
adopting an overall sustainable approach that would also help the future generation and
would be effective in all terms whether social, economic or environmental. Thus people are
coming up with better ideas that would be helpful in some way or the other, one of those
ideas that would be helpful to the dairy industry is discussed herewith in this assignment.
With the advent of this technological ideas, dairy farmers would be very much helped as it
would help in monitoring the health of the cows and thus in that it would help the dairy
farmers in breading them in a better way and provide them with such facilities and conditions
that would help them in growing more and giving better products for mankind. Previously it
was not easy to judge how the animals were feeling and functioning and how it was affecting
the dairy products that were extracted out of them, so now it has become imperative that there
needs to be a technological intervention that would help in increasing the overall
transparency for the farmers and these 3D scanners does the same. There are certain factors
based on financial, social, environmental terms that the farmers need to consider before using
these scanners. The initial monetary cost is also a big challenge for small scale dairy farmers,
so government should start free check-up of the animals with the help of these scanners that
would help them to understand the exact position of the dairy animals. That will help in
increasing the basic awareness that is required with regards to the health of animals. Training
and other services also required to be given so that people can use these scanners better.
Overall it is a very good idea if properly implemented and people gets supportive to the use
of such devices without involving too much hustle. It would be beneficial in the long term
and help in better breading of the animals that will help in getting healthier off springs of the
animals. This is how the effective use of technology can help in changing the everyday basic
issues that people might face.

4. References
AgriLand Team 2016, New 3D technology scans dairy cows for optimum body condition,
AgriLand, Ireland, viewed 29 May 2018, <https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/new-3d-
technology-scans-dairy-cows-for-optimum-body-condition/>.
Aicd.companydirectors.com.au. (2018). Sustainability and social impact. [online] Available
at: http://aicd.companydirectors.com.au/membership/company-director-magazine/2017-back-
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Anon, (2018). [image] Available at: https://www.google.com.hk/search?
q=sustainability&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwijhr64o8jbAhVByLwKHb
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2018].
Books.mongabay.com. (2018). Working Conditions for Farmers, ranchers, and agricultural
managers. [online] Available at:
https://books.mongabay.com/labor/working_conditions/176.html [Accessed 10 Jun. 2018].
Commonwealth of Australia 2018, Budget Measures Budget Paper No. 2 2018-19,
Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, viewed 29 May 2018,
<https://www.budget.gov.au/2018-19/content/bp2/index.html>.
Ohnstad, I2013, 'Body condition scoring in dairy cattle: monitoring health to improve milk
yield and fertility', Livestock, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 70 -73.