In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, the ability to learn and adapt is the only sustainable competitive advantage. The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has accelerated this shift, making it imperative for businesses to embrace change or risk obsolescence.
With AI and machine learning marking a new era of evolution for dairy businesses, let’s take a closer look at the new technology helping companies work smarter and more efficiently than ever.
Operations efficiency is the key to business success
Leveraging successive evolutions in technology over hundreds of years, the dairy sector has long placed a keen emphasis on innovation, from electrification to automation. Today, with efficiency and value chain optimisation a never-ending focus, business success depends on having well-oiled and deeply integrated operations. All so that businesses can that deliver the highest-value protein to the most profitable markets while meeting growing consumer expectations for traceability, ethical sourcing and sustainability.
Yet dairy businesses continue to face uncertainty even with well-established operations. Dairy is a disassembly process. Manufacturers must tailor their product mix based on market demand and value, which is especially challenging due to the seasonal nature of farming. This requires extensive real-time data monitoring on everything from cow health and pasture conditions to milk composition and logistics. And all long before milk reaches the factory.
Once in the factory, high-capital processing plants demand reliability and precision. Technologies such as thermography, infrared scanning, vibration analysis and autonomous maintenance are used to ensure uptime and product quality. Beyond the factory, the value chain extends to containerisation, temperature-controlled logistics, export documentation and distribution network optimisation.
What are the emerging technologies driving innovation in the dairy sector?
Under pressure to continue boosting operations efficiency, emerging technologies can play a key role in helping businesses boost positive outcomes.
- Robotics
Automated milking systems now allow cows to self-milk, increasing yield and enabling real-time compositional analysis. These systems reduce labour costs and enhance animal welfare by allowing cows to follow natural milking rhythms.
- Artificial Intelligence
AI can help optimise herd and pasture management and forecast demand based on social and environmental data, as well as support early disease detection and reproductive planning, improving herd health and productivity.
Other tools, such as real-time herd management and e-shepherd systems, allow farmers to monitor and guide livestock remotely, improving pasture utilisation and animal health while reducing farm management and improving data capture.
In demand forecasting, AI models analyse consumer behaviour, weather patterns and market trends to help producers align supply with high-value opportunities.
- Internet of Things (IoT)
Underlying the rapid evolution of AI is the increased utilisation of data as a way of informing strategic and operational decisions. Through data, activities like milk collection have evolved away from mere route optimisation and towards more value-based optimisation. That is, prioritising the best quality milk for the best processing outcome. GPS and milk composition data feed into AI models that optimise logistics and network performance. This integration reduces waste and enhances responsiveness to market fluctuations. IoT sensors monitor milk temperature, age and composition throughout the journey, ensuring quality and compliance with safety standards.
- Blockchain
Blockchain ensures end-to-end traceability and supply chain integrity. Consumers increasingly demand transparency and ethical sourcing, which blockchain and IoT technologies can deliver in real time.
Blockchain can also help simplify export compliance and documentation, reducing administrative overhead and improving transaction speed.
The future of the dairy sector
The rate of change is only accelerating and emerging technologies are increasingly creating transformative opportunities for dairy companies. These are some trends we are seeing:
- The ability to scale investment and aggregate data is accelerating. Smaller non vertically integrated producers will struggle to compete with the value chains of larger more integrated producers
- Larger producers will extend their reach through acquisition or collaboration into new markets and geographies to leverage scale and data
- New technologies such as 3D printing of protein utilising dairy proteins as a base are being researched, and small scale on farm drying capability to reduce asset investment and create flexibility
- Intra company collaboration to balance supply and demand for optimal product mix
To remain competitive, organisations must assess their ability to adapt to new technologies so as to begin building a roadmap for human-centric machine integration.
Argon & Co helps dairy companies around the world to optimise their dairy supply chains and lessen their environmental footprints. Find out how we can help you.
This is the second article in our mini-series titled ‘The future of dairy: how technology, trade and transformation can drive performance in a changing industry’
Read more here:
Article 1 – Connected, agile, informed: The next era of dairy supply chains
Upcoming articles to look out for…
Article 3 – Unlocking value through sustainability: the opportunities of circularity for dairy businesses
Article 4 – The Shifting Landscape of Global Dairy Trade: A Look to the Future
Share:
