Inside ADA™ | The ADA Standard in Action
When livestock equipment arrives on a farm, most producers will never see the decisions that went into building it.
They won’t see the material being selected, measurements being checked, fabrication taking place or the conversations on the shop floor when something doesn’t look quite right. What they will experience is the result once that equipment becomes part of the barn.
Does it fit the way it should? Does it hold up to daily use? Is it practical to work around? Can it withstand the environment it was designed for? And, years after installation, is it still doing its job without becoming another maintenance problem?
That is ultimately where manufacturing quality gets measured.
For livestock-equipment manufacturers, however, those outcomes begin long before a product reaches the farm. They are influenced by hundreds of smaller decisions during design, fabrication, assembly and inspection.
At ADA Enterprises, there is a simple way to think about that final responsibility:
Is it ADA ready?
The phrase raises a broader question worth considering throughout livestock production: What actually separates equipment that is finished from equipment that is truly field-ready?
Quality Starts Before Final Inspection
It is easy to think about quality control as the last step in manufacturing. A product is completed, inspected, corrected if necessary and cleared to ship.
Final inspection matters, but many of the decisions that determine long-term performance have already been made by then.
Material selection affects how equipment responds to its environment. Measurements and tolerances influence fit and installation. Fabrication affects structural integrity. Surface design can influence traction and cleanability. Seemingly small decisions about connections, edges, coatings and finishing can eventually affect both animals and the people working around the equipment.
That is why quality is difficult to inspect into a product at the end.
It has to be built into the process from the beginning.
The Barn Is the Real Test
Livestock facilities are demanding environments.
Equipment can be exposed to moisture, manure, cleaning chemicals, pressure washing, animal contact and constant interaction with employees. Flooring carries animals and people every day. Gates and other components may be used thousands of times. Equipment that looked perfect when it left the manufacturing floor eventually has to prove itself under conditions that can’t be recreated by a final inspection.
ADA’s Dura Trac flooring, for example, uses a steel structure completely covered in plastisol, with the coating intended to protect the metal while the flooring surface provides traction without being abrasive. ADA also designs its swine flooring around considerations including cleaning, animal comfort and installation.
Those product characteristics matter, but the more interesting measurement comes later:
What happens after the equipment has been in the barn for years?
When Quality Becomes Almost Invisible
One of the paradoxes of good livestock equipment is that producers may notice it least when it is performing best.
A component that doesn’t fit creates an installation problem. Poor traction gets noticed. Equipment that’s difficult to clean adds labour. Premature wear creates another maintenance decision.
When those problems don’t occur, the equipment simply becomes part of the operation.
ADA’s customer experiences provide an interesting illustration.
Compart Family Farms says it has worked with ADA since the mid-to-late 1980s and has continued installing Dura Trac flooring across farms. Chris Compart’s explanation for that repeat business is refreshingly straightforward: “You don’t keep buying what you don’t like.”
At Kelly Farms, Sandra and Doug Redekop reported Dura Trac flooring still in use after over 30 years. Their observations weren’t limited to longevity; they also pointed to installation, cleaning, inspection for cleanliness, traction and piglet comfort as important parts of their experience.
Those examples help broaden the definition of durability.
A product doesn’t prove itself simply by surviving.
It has to continue functioning within the production system.
Small Manufacturing Details Become Operational Details
A seemingly minor decision on a manufacturing floor can become a much larger issue once equipment is installed.
A component that doesn’t fit correctly can complicate installation. A weak connection can become a maintenance issue. A poorly considered surface can make cleaning more difficult. A small inconsistency repeated across a large installation can create unnecessary work throughout the facility.
The opposite is equally important.
When equipment fits correctly, functions predictably and works with the people and animals using it, those manufacturing decisions disappear into the operation.
This connects directly with something we explored in the July installment of The ADA Standard™: efficiency isn’t simply about completing chores faster. It is often designed into the environment itself—how people, pigs and equipment move and work together.
Manufacturing quality is part of that same equation.
Quality Control vs. Quality Ownership
There is also a human side to quality that specifications alone can’t capture.
Procedures and inspections establish expectations, but experienced people develop judgment. They learn what good work looks like. They recognize when something isn’t right, sometimes before a formal inspection would identify it.
That creates an important distinction between quality control and quality ownership.
Quality control asks whether a finished product meets the required standard.
Quality ownership means the people involved throughout the process understand that they have a responsibility for protecting that standard.
That matters most when schedules tighten. Manufacturing has deadlines just like farming does, and there will always be pressure to keep work moving. A meaningful standard has to remain meaningful when production is busy—not only when there is plenty of time.
Build With the Barn in Mind
Perhaps one of the simplest quality-control questions is also one of the most useful:
What happens in the barn if we don’t get this right?
That changes the perspective.
The person fabricating a piece of equipment may never meet the producer who buys it. They may never see the barn where it is installed or the employees who interact with it every day.
But their work eventually reaches all of them.
Manufacturing → Installation → Daily Use → Long-Term Performance
Eden Hofer at Kamsley Colony describes that connection from the producer side. His assessment of Dura Trac touches on durability, pig cleanliness and traction, but also something increasingly important in livestock production: labour. He reports that easier cleaning and maintenance allow more time to be directed toward herd management.
That’s where a manufacturing decision stops being merely a product specification.
It becomes an operational outcome.
Reliability Is Built Before It Is Proven
Producers understandably think about reliability as something demonstrated over time.
But reliability is built before it is proven.
It begins with design and material selection. It continues through fabrication, assembly and inspection. It depends on people paying attention to details the eventual customer may never see.
Only then does the equipment reach the farm and begin proving whether those decisions were right.
That’s the larger idea behind being “ADA ready.”
For ADA Enterprises, which has manufactured plastisol-coated steel animal products since 1974, the standard ultimately has to extend beyond whether something is complete enough to leave the manufacturing floor.
It has to be ready for where it’s going next.
The barn.
And that’s where the producer ultimately decides what quality really means.
Because producers aren’t buying the weld, the measurement, the coating or the final inspection individually.
They’re buying what all of those things are supposed to create: equipment they can rely on.
Inside ADA™
Inside ADA™ is part of The ADA Standard™, an ongoing series exploring the people, processes and principles behind equipment built for real-world livestock production.
Learn more about ADA Enterprises and The ADA Standard™ at ADAENT.net.
