The nature of operations in dairy plants has significantly changed over the past few decades. Industry players, from the farm to the plant, are adopting automation to streamline their processes. The trend has far-reaching implications, with previously manually controlled processes now undertaken by robots. Extensive mechanization in the dairy industry still has great potential, given that new technologies are cropping up daily.

Manufacturing Execution Systems For Process Control

Automation engineering is a fast-paced industry. A few decades ago, food industry players relied on electro-mechanical relays as their default control systems. Today, this outdated technology has been replaced by manufacturing execution systems with programmable information chipsets. The storage of data bits of the production recipes in electronic memory helps food processing plants to attain optimized ‘intelligent factory’ attributes.

The Integrated Dairy Plant

Automation within the dairy industry is now geared towards a total integrated dairy plant system. An automation engineering consultant can help factories design an MES that blends all dairy processes into one seamless operation. Controllers with user-friendly interface can help plant managers track product transfer from one production section to the other.

Customized Automated Solutions

The growing range of products and product lines necessitates the need for custom controlled systems to increase a dairy plant’s economics and efficiency. No dairy plant is the same, and automation engineering systems differ on the number of production lines and recipes. Dairy industry manufacturing consultants can offer customized control solutions tailored to a factory’s needs.

How automation revolutionizes dairy industry manufacturing

1. Food Safety

Automation engineering reduces the need for human control, which eliminates the chances of human error during the production process. With increased cases of foodborne illnesses, governments are tightening the noose of industry players to ensure product safety and quality. Automated processes such as controlled cleaning within the production lines prevent contamination through unwanted mixing of products.

2. Consistent Product Quality

Automated manufacturing cells can operate for long durations with less variability, generating consistency in the products processed. The dynamic optimization of all processes that helps standardize all products leaving the plant. Controllers allow plant managers to fine-tune the production unit with defined workflows and timelines.

3. Improved Production Capacity

Automation within the dairy industry manufacturing creates robotic systems that can work at a constant rate, 24 hours a day, unlike human labor. The machines can hit high-efficiency figures of up to 90% uptime. Introduction of new product lines without necessarily affecting on-going operations can help increase capacity within the plant.

4. Better Production Control

Integrated systems such as the Manufacturing Execution System can help dairy farms and plants to have precise control over their production processes. The information management systems generate automated reports of the production data for effective planning and optimization of plant processes.

5. Traceability

Automation of your production lines allows for effective tracking of products. You can create an inventory tracking that begins at the reception area of the raw materials, through the production systems and batch tracking of the finished products. It helps in easier tracing and investigation of defective products that may end up on the shelves.

Automation in daily industry manufacturing helps businesses adopt effective practices that improve production control while increasing its capacity. It can also help to minimize errors on the production floor as well as support production consistency. Project Group Consulting can help design an MES model that will propel your business to success.