With over 25% of the total global milk production, India has shown remarkable progress in becoming a leading name in the global dairy industry. In addition to domestic direct milk consumption, the surplus milk produced in India finds its way into several value-added products as well as exports, thereby contributing significantly to the economy as well. It is estimated that the dairy sector contributes nearly 5% of the national economy every year.
Such great impact and high growth rates are significantly achieved through the committed efforts of dairy cooperatives across the nation. These societies have fostered communities that have adopted a culture of organized management of milk production, procurement, processing, and marketing to ensure a sustainable supply of milk and milk-based products as per local and export demands.
Embracing technology for the next growth story
Dairy cooperatives have successfully managed to bring an admirable degree of organized management to the vast ecosystem of milk producers and buyers in the country. However, they have been relying on manual approaches to achieve the same, and the time may have come to move beyond such methods. Relying on manual processes results in a lack of insights and efficiency, both of which are critical for the sector’s transformation into a bigger contributor towards the national economy. Over the past decade, there has been a slew of new digital initiatives that dairy cooperatives embraced. But in most cases, it was either simple computerization for data entry or billing.
Many decision-makers in the dairy cooperative sector are missing out on the opportunity to transform the entire value chain of their production and promotion ecosystem. An immense transformation opportunity is available through a combination of two prominent modern-day technologies – the Internet of Things (IoT) and the cloud.
Building an end-to-end integrated milk management ecosystem for dairy cooperatives
By combining the capabilities of IoT and cloud, dairy cooperatives can unlock major opportunities to significantly improve their operational efficiency with automation, as well as enable easy management and visibility for every participant ranging from farmers to suppliers of cattle feed, and milk-logistics partners and distributors.
The IoT part handles the automation of machinery involved in their production and distribution lifecycle. This could be as simple as tracking sensors on trucks ferrying milk or fodder to different destinations or as complex as automated milk collection that involves verifying the quality of milk acquired from different sources using data from milk testing machinery to power further distribution processes.
On the other hand, the cloud offers an environment to build the digital management ecosystem of the entire society and integrate all entities involved through centralized dashboards, smartphone applications, and other core applications like ERP, data management, billing, payroll, etc.
Today, successful global dairy giants like Nestle leverage an automated POS/Mobile based automated milk collection solution built by technology partners like CSI for their operations. Such systems offer end-to-end centralized management of their entire milk production ecosystem within India with the added benefit of its technology architecture being able to accommodate future digital trends in the industry.
How can cooperative dairies benefit from the IoT-cloud combination?
Let us have a closer look at how dairy cooperatives can achieve higher efficiency and improved business performance by leveraging the IoT-cloud combination:
Unified management
Dairy cooperatives can build a unified cloud solution that offers a single point of control for end-to-end milk procurement and distribution. The software can be used by all stakeholders on their respective devices, such as computers or on their smartphones. The solution can get data from even the production equipment thanks to the IoT-enabled integration of the milk collection centre machinery as well as testing equipment. The cloud solution can integrate with all existing machines and hardware and can accommodate future changes seamlessly with software upgrades.
Centralized billing and rate management
A dairy cooperative may have hundreds or thousands of suppliers and micro-societies supplying milk from different regions. Providing these suppliers with an IoT-integrated field device allows the cooperative to push real-time rates over the air through their cloud software for efficient and dispute-free billing. A wireless gateway can ensure seamless communication between devices, milk testing equipment, and the centralized management solution.
Integrate ERP for automation
The end-to-end management of the dairy’s operations can be streamlined by adding an ERP module to the cloud management solution. The ERP system can access data from across all suppliers, vendors, logistics partners, field machines, billing systems, etc. This allows for effortless automation across several departments like finance, purchases, HRMS, sales, etc. There will be minimal human intervention thanks to direct IoT-based data supply from collection centres and other stakeholders involved in the ecosystem such as transportation trucks, distributors, warehouses, etc.
Foster transparent producer relationships
The integrated solution for milk procurement using IoT and cloud brings in a high degree of automation across the entire operational value chain as seen above. This allows for efficient producer relationships with easy onboarding, milk payroll, financial management, reconciliation of invoices, etc. Since machine information is directly transmitted to the dairy without manual intervention, there is no scope for tampering leading to better visibility and trust without any errors.
Navigating the future of dairy operations
An integrated IoT-cloud solution for milk procurement management is a fundamental step in empowering dairy cooperatives to become a more competitive and resilient authority for conducting large business. This allows them to transform their business into one with global standards capable of competing with large MNCs and private companies in the dairy sector. The right solution like CSI’s IMPSONE can help dairy cooperatives navigate the future of streamlining milk production and fuel localized and national economic growth. Get in touch with us to learn more.