Why revise your milk supply chain technology?

Despite the hype surrounding digitalization in the dairy industry, there is still a sizeable technological gap across the industry. The challenge of finding solutions that can handle the unique complexities involved within the milk supply chain has resulted in an industry with varying states of digital technologies and systems.

The change, disruption, and implementation of new technologies come with high perceived risks, especially if the technology isn't tried and tested for the dairy industry. In response to this, dairy companies have created homegrown systems, used multiple systems, including utilizing older technologies such as faxes, spreadsheets, and manual-based processes to help them achieve their daily tasks and processes.

This technological gap prevents meaningful collaboration. While some dairy companies can track their data precisely in real-time, others rely on spreadsheets and paper tickets. The information becomes unresponsive, slow, and unreliable.

Besides the massive cost and resource savings from the milk supply chain’s digitalization, what are the outcomes when dairy companies implement technology that solves and understands their unique challenges?

It makes milk better

In recent years there has been an increasing trend in customers demanding premium milk. They are after high-quality, environmentally friendly, and healthy products. Such as "grass-fed", "organic", "cave-aged", "triple-cream", etc. Consumers demand premium dairy products; therefore, dairy leaders should ensure that processes across the milk supply chain are high-quality to satisfy this demand.

Effective digitalization of the milk supply chain contributes to better efforts. Therefore, better milk, a better environment, and better relationships. The results? Better products! It does this by increasing the accuracy and optimization across dairy processes. Information like milk quality tests, producer supply, on-farm data, tanker tracking, and forecasting are standardized and accessible to everyone across the milk supply chain.

A flexible system to cater to changes in milk payment formulas as required, no matter how complex, will incentivize milk quality results. Accessibility leads to higher quality milk because the products have the compliance, testing, and environmental data completely visible to back those premium claims for consumer assurance.

More importantly, from a collaboration standpoint, dairy companies that adopt technologies with the same goals in mind — increased efficiency, productivity, sustainability, compliance initiatives, and cost savings — will build successful, trusting partnerships that provide value to all partners.

For example, the co-mingling of milk is complex and provides challenges regarding traceability, payment, and quality control. When dairy companies adopt technologies that have the scope to handle such complexities, co-mingling collaboration can occur successfully.

MADCAP understands dairy values and modern markets. We fully understand the unique complexities found within the dairy industry. We invented a technology for milk supply chain management in 1974 to help the New Zealand and Australian dairy industry begin their journey on the digital optimization of their milk supply chains. For the past decade, we have been providing solutions to the global dairy industry to get ahead. We are committed to long-term quality enabling continuous improvement helping the dairy industry overcome its current challenges to help make milk better!

It grows business insights

In any business, knowledge is power. The dairy industry is no exception. Within the milk supply chain, it comes in data that can lead to better business intelligence. RFID tags, barcodes, apps, and real-time sensors help gather this data across the milk supply chain – from farm to factory. However, for this data to be valid, it needs to be captured and analyzed in a way that obtains actionable business intelligence. Lots of mistakes are made due to inaccurate data.

The ultimate solution is to have a centralized platform to collect, present, and analyze all this data in a form that demonstrates patterns in trends, forecasts, and predictive analytics. Actionable intelligence like this helps dairy leaders predict or spot disruptions in real-time before it hinders the milk supply chain – such as inconsistent milk testing results.

MADCAP is the solution. It centralizes all the milk supply chain data flow, with all data from the farm, haulers, laboratories, and factory linking up to the rest of the milk supply chain. Thus, dairy companies, critical third parties, auditors, and legislative bodies can access this information hassle-free, unlike other solutions, which are often disparate, siloed, not alerting stakeholders to inconsistencies, and do not share this data directly into the same system creating a data mess. MADCAP enables dairy leaders to gain business insights for actionable intelligence.

Our experience has seen that once MADCAP has been implemented, our customers can better improve processes and cut costs. For example, MADCAP was implemented in a small dairy company with 50 producers/suppliers. The previous system they were utilizing had a rounding error with their payment formulas. MADCAP gave them the insight to detect and correct this error. This improvement saved the dairy company over $20,000 per month. The dairy company boosted productivity and profits while decreasing effort and costs.

Improves visibility and efficiency

One of the most significant factors that slow down milk supply chains is a lack of internal and external visibility. Nothing gets more in the way of efficient collaboration than a simple lack of information flow. Milk supply chain management technology simplifies the process and provides the visibility needed for improved efficiency and accuracy.

A configurable and flexible milk supply chain management solution will contain all the vital information for the milk supply chain (e.g., scheduling, payments, milk quality, producer compliance, company compliance, sustainability, and auditability). Consistent and cumulative collection and storage of this data ensure the utmost transparency.Data transparency is beneficial for onboarding new partners, producers, and haulers because one platform contains all vital information. Thus, it is more convenient to identify cost optimization opportunities.

It also provides customers with the assurance and proof that dairy companies can back premium claims with traceability and that the milk is of a high-quality standard.

Looking ahead

The milk supply chain is complex. Getting the milk from farm to factory requires a vast amount of expertise, compliance, and optimization. Having the expertise to overcome every challenge and optimizing every process across the milk supply chain is a huge undertaking.

The key is finding a partner who has a proven solution, who truly understands your business’ unique requirements, who is innovative and communicates openly and promptly so you can stay one step ahead of the industry and market changes.

Finding someone who says they are an expert is one thing; vetting their claims is another. Do your research, check references, and choose a proven solution. Make sure you select a world-leading expert who can adapt to the dairy industry's ongoing changing requirements, and you will benefit from improved efficiency, measurable savings, and better traceability.

The dairy supply chain industry is complex, and you need the best software partners to navigate these challenges. Please do your due diligence, whether understanding the industry, helping you address its unique pressures, scaling with your business, or providing expert support around the clock. By performing your due diligence, it becomes apparent who can back their claims.