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Automatic or computerised dairy technology is need of the hour
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Monday, 03 August, 2009, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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India is the largest producer of milk in the world with annual production estimated at over 100 million tonnes. With increase in milk production, production of processed dairy products like milk powder, infant milk food, ice-cream, ghee, curd condensed milk, butter, cheese, and khoa and khoa based sweets is also growing. With growing dairy processing, the demand for state-of-the-art dairy technology has also shot up swiftly. Roopendra Chavan, CEO, edoodh Solutions, one of the leading dairy technology providers - shares his views on the present and future of the Indian milk processing technology in an e-mail interview with Hasan Mulani of Food & Beverage News. Excerpts:
What are the current trends in dairy automation and technology in India and across the world?
The current Indian milk processing technology market is in its nascent stage. On worldwide basis automation is more of an integrated plant with wide intelligence featuring rich SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition system) along with industry specific MES (manufacturing execution system), MIS (management information system) and process workflow based system for inter-department communication.
MES - helps to do all the computation like formulation of batches, batch planning, fat / SNF (solids not fat) accounting, equipment and plant utilisation planning, whereas MIS helps bring not only recorded data but analytical or (BI) business intelligent information to top management from factory floor for better decision making which also supports integration with existing (enterprise resource planning) ERP / CRM (customer resource management) systems.
What are the automation technology systems offered by your company for the Indian dairy sector?
We offer centralised automation solutions for dairy plants with handling capacity from 10,000 to 20,000 lakh litres per day. This includes a variety of innovative automation systems and services ranging from the provision of electronic process control to integrated company network systems with corresponding management execution system & management information systems.
We also offer machine control systems for pasteurisers, separators, homogenisers, (cleaning in place), CIP and silos which can be equally included into the automation systems through the bus network.
We at edoodh Solutions always seek "Dairy control room: All milk processing done from one place" - facilitate to monitor, control and record all your Milk processing activities from Control room through computers. Robust, scalable and user friendly solution for the entire milk processing activities like silos/tanks, pasteurisers, separators/clarifiers, homogenisers, valve regulations and centralised CIP system.
Are domestic players sufficient to meet the country's requirements? Who are your leading clients?
Milk is a perishable product so there is no space for any downtime or breakdown. Generally, a milk or milk processing firm work 24X7 round the year, any system which is implemented as a centralised intelligence for entire plant becomes very crucial for day-to-day working. This requires perfection in design, development and stringent automation testing before deployment in the plant. We have sophisticated up-to-date technology and simulation testing facility at Dairy Automation Inc Houston, Texas (US), to ensure best quality and value added system for our clients.
As far as Indian market is concerned, there is lack of domestic players who can provide high quality, robust and value added systems. We are working with leading Indian brands in dairies like Amul, Mahanand (Maharashtra) and Krishna Milk.
How do you find the available dairy technology in the country? What will be the future of the Indian dairy technology?
Currently, India is becoming more of a global market as world's largest dairy giants are making entry into the country. These forays will make the sector more competitive and technology driven. Future looks promising as awareness is increasing and people are working towards "No Touch Milk right from procurement to processing and packing" which will help India to compete with the rest of the world not only in production capacity but also in quality and hygiene of milk and milk products.
According to you, what are the issues that need to be addressed?
Today, the main issue is the mindset of the people towards the new technologies. Many co-operatives and dairy organisations are still taking a lot of time to realise the fact that automation & computerisation is the need of the hour.
If we compare dairy sector with any other sector like pharma, oil & gas, steel, or cement all these sectors are far ahead of us with regard to adoption of new technologies and due to this India is doing very well in these sectors in terms of exports. In dairy plants, manual working can never bring good quality.
What are your future plans? Could you tell us about your latest R&D in the company?
We are in the process of setting up state-of-the-art development and 24-hour call centre/support facility in Mumbai which would be operational in the coming 2-3 months. Currently, we are also working on integration of our solutions with leading ERP solutions like Microsoft Dynamics and collaboration solutions like Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. The idea is to provide web-based total solutions not only to perform integration within the organisation boundaries but it shall be across the boundaries and shall integrate chilling centres, main units, sub units, distribution network etc. on one real-time integrated.
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