The Dairy Industry: Process, Monitoring, Standards, and Quality

Sampling and analysis occur along the milk processing train: from collection at farm level, to intake at the diary plant, the processing steps, and the end products. Milk has a short shelf life; however, products such as milk powders have allowed a global industry to be developed. Quality control tests are vital to support activities for hygiene and food standards to meet regulatory and customer demands. Multiples of chemical and microbiological contamination tests are undertaken. Hazard analysis testing strategies are necessary, but some tests may be redundant; it is therefore vital to identify product optimization quality control strategies. The time taken to undergo testing and turnaround time are rarely measured. The dairy industry is a traditional industry with a low margin commodity. Industry 4.0 vision for dairy manufacturing is to introduce the aspects of operational excellence and implementation of information and communications technologies. The dairy industries’ reply to Industry 4.0 is represented predominantly by proactive maintenance and optimization of production and logistical chains, such as robotic milking machines and processing and packaging line automation reinforced by sensors for rapid chemical and microbial analysis with improved and real-time data management. This chapter reviews the processing trains with suggestions for improved optimization

A comparison of analytical test methods in dairy processing

Dairy quality strategies start at the beginning of a raw milk supply chain at farm level, but it is the obligation of the manufacturer at a dairy processing plant to ensure quality is upheld from intake to finished product. This is achieved by implementing robust quality systems, measured through sampling plans and analytical test methods. Influences on product quality and composition, and analytical test results within a dairy plant are multi-factorial including: seasonality; the quality of incoming milk and herd health; the level of skilled laboratory technicians; the level of production and the availability of equipment; and finally milk harvesting, transportation and handling. These factors, along with customer and regulatory requirements will determine the level and type of analytical testing required. In the dairy industry, manufacturers oftentimes pay little attention to the need for optimising analytical test strategies or improving laboratory operations, if it is not broken why fix it? The focus of this qualitative research was to differentiate the core current analytical test methods in use at three dairy manufacturing plants for the production of raw milk, skim milk and cream and skim milk powder (SMP). The main objective being to inform and educate each producer on best practice methods. Results displayed similarities across testing categories but demonstrated a range of traditional testing methods in the microbiological analysis compared to advanced instrumentation use in the chemical and compositional analytical category. The dairy industry needs to adapt to a modern, process focused quality system using industry 4.0 analytical processing regimes

Milk reception in a time-efficient manner: a case from the dairy processing plant

The short raw milk lifespan is a matter of concern for the dairy processing sector. It is crucial to the final product quality to ensure that raw milk will reach the cooling facility without undue delay while maintaining high hygienic standards. However, an effective milk reception is undermined by numerous internal and external challenges due to the complexity of the dairy manufacturing system and the stochastic variation of the milk supply chain. This work presents an industrial case study where the milk reception performance was examined, and opportunities for improvement were identified. The output provided operational documentation of each stage of milk reception. The outcomes illustrate that existing infrastructure and operations were not set up to manage a post-quota abolition uptake in milk production. A number of shortcomings and challenges were outlined, namely process bottlenecks, inefficient design of the facility layout, lack of standardized procedures, and internal-communication issues. Recommendations for improvements have been provided to achieve a 23.4% reduction of process lead time. These findings provide an opportunity for the industry to review their milk reception operations to deal with stochastic variations in milk supply and seasonality