Milk Tank Monitoring

Alan Wallace manages a 175 pedigree Holstein cow Dairy herd on a 113 hectare farm in Mid Antrim. Like many Dairy farmers, Alan strives to produce quality milk on his farm in an efficient and profitable way. One aspect of Alan’s business is to ensure that his milk is stored in optimal conditions. Ensuring that the Milk Bulk tank is performing within its recommended design specification requires constant monitoring. Alan’s busy schedule does not give him time to monitor this. Alan says

The Increasing Access to ICT scheme has allowed Alan the opportunity to try out a novel milk tank monitoring system. The TankCare system monitors various parameters of the milk tanks performance. If any of these parameters fall outside the recommended setting, risking the quality of the milk, the TankCare system will alert Alan with a text message.

To maintain the quality of milk, the dairy farmer  needs to ensure that the bulk milk tank keeps it cool within a set temperature range and that the tank is washed at pre-determined intervals. If these parameters of care are not met, this will  lead to loss of product and money. As a result, there are tangible benefits and time savings to be had from automatically and remotely monitoring the performance of the bulk tank.

Talking about the benefits of remote montoring Allan says “When you are busy, it is nice to have something keeping a check on your bulk tank, you can’t always check during the day to make sure it is cooling”

The Tankcare system has alerted Alan on the few occasions that the milk had not cooled enough and if the wash cycle was not up to the required temperature. This has enabled him to take action. The solution has brought him peace of mind and acts as an early warning system.

This technology has application in other sectors for example monitoring of CO2 and temperature in apple stores.