Milk pump breakdowns, vat valve accidents, filter sock blockages and plate cooler blockages often rear their ugly heads, but an energy monitoring system to improve efficiencies of farm energy use could cut the problem.
The DemoDAIRY Foundation Dairy Innovation Challenge Sustainability-Environmental award for outside the south-west was won by Geoff Schaller of Arcoflex Pty Ltd Boronia for the system to monitor milk pump line pressure, detecting both over and under pressure with the same sensor.
Milk pumps are crucial to milk delivery into the vat. When they break down – whether it is seals or the motor – the result is zero milk and a loss of income. Arcoflex continually monitors the milk delivery pressure into the vat. This has several benefits that revolve around human mistakes that are commonly made. This single measure has saved probably 20 vats of wasted milk in 2021 at 15 dairies. This is an important preventative measure that costs just a fraction of a vat of milk.