With IoT and artificial intelligence, technology monitors the entire dairy production chain
To reach the consumer's home, the milk travels a long way, which originates in milking and includes cooling and transport to the dairy industry, passing through pasteurization and packaging. To monitor all stages of this process and ensure the quality of the food until our table, SONDA, a Latin American technology services company, developed a solution based on the internet of things and analytics.
Named Vaca Conectada, the solution uses data collected from sensors strategically placed on the animals, on the farms' cooling tanks and on the trucks that transport the product.
"SONDA's solution is the first to make milk traceability available throughout the production chain, verifying the animal's behavior, handling and milking", explains André Silva, SONDA's CTO of Digital Transformation.
The sensors attached to the animals monitor temperature, steps, rumination, estrus potential and send the information to an artificial intelligence platform that indicates, with clarity and easily accessible information, reproductive cycles, health problems or any nonconformity in the animal's behavior. This data helps to prevent possible diseases, with a direct impact on farm productivity.
The sensors located in the cooling tanks indicate if the product temperature is adequate to market standards or if it has undergone any variation above what is allowed. The technology also ensures that the volume sold with the dairy is the same as indicated in the tanks, ensuring operational efficiency and avoiding losses or contamination at the time of collection.
"If a farm's milk has suffered a temperature variation above that allowed by the normative instructions that regulate milk production, this batch can spoil the entire volume of a truck that has already passed through other farms collecting the raw material. to guarantee productivity and favors the quality control of the production chain", comments Silva.
This same concept is also applied to the trucks that transport the food. The tool makes it possible to follow the entire route, monitoring the temperature, number of times the tank was opened and if the milk was removed without authorization. The sensors also guarantee cheaper maintenance and less technical unavailability, as they follow the usage time and useful life of the tank cooling motors, predicting with the help of artificial intelligence, the need for replacement, repair and root cause of the problem.
"Dairy products already have a high degree of quality and production control. There was a lack of a solution that would bring this same efficiency into the gate and that is what SONDA delivers" explains Caio Silva, SONDA's vice president of Applications. "With Vaca Conectada, producers will be able to increase their profit margins by guaranteeing a product with greater added value", he adds.
Vaca Conectada eliminates the need for a robust technological infrastructure, such as connectivity and energy on the farms. Batteries with an average lifespan of ten years and specific communication networks for IoT are used, in addition to enabling a simple implementation, in a plug-and-play model. The solution was developed in partnership with Sigmais, a startup from Espírito Santo focused on IoT technologies.
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