Within the cattle industry there has been a transition away from hiring professional technicians to artificially breed cattle and toward insemination by owner-inseminators. At the end of year 2015 there were about 1200 owner-inseminators in Finland, which means that about 20 % of the in-seminations are conducted by the owner. This thesis examines Faba’s operations model of artifi-cial insemination (AI) made by the owner-inseminator. Faba is a cooperative association in Fin-land which is specialized on breeding and artificial insemination services. Faba supplies all of the AI accessories for the cattle owners. The owner-inseminators save the data to Ammu-software which is connected to a database, from where Faba uses the information. The owner-inseminators may also exploit saved data by printing action lists about the herd, for instance from animals about to calve or animals which should be inseminated. Action lists are generated on the base of the AI information.

A problem has been noticed about owner-inseminators saving the data from AI. The problem defined also the subject of this thesis. Faba specialists are not able to completely exploit the AI information when it is incorrect or defective. This thesis is a preliminary study about owner-inseminators motivation and the reasons to do artificial inseminations by themselves and about saving the data. The main research method was to interview five owner-inseminators and five Faba specialists to understand the whole operations model between Faba and owner-inseminators. Interviewed specialists are experts in the field of breeding, which needs the AI data. The AI information provides specialists an opportunity to do research about fertility and develop breeding programs.

Even though owner-insemination is a growing phenomenon, AI technician will still be needed. The cattle owners regularly use the professional technician services even if they inseminate by themselves. For instance animals which are difficult to inseminate are often served by profes-sional inseminators. Faba’s owner-inseminator clients are at this moment quite pleased with Faba’s operations model of owner-inseminator. They are regularly saving the data, motivated mostly by the action lists that they receive. Developing the Ammu-software system to be faster and easier to use would probably motivate the clients to save insemination information more regularly. Also better knowledge about the connection between breeding reviews, fertility reviews and saved data would give more reasons to save the information. Actions based to the cattle’s statistics could bring financial savings.