Building the world’s best nutritional business is the ambitious goal that New Zealand dairy company Mataura Valley Milk set out to achieve in August 2016.

Now the company’s milk production plant is an impressive accomplishment that comfortably justifies its early ambition.

Mataura Valley Milk is now benchmarking innovation and performance for other milk plants.

Situated north of Gore at the bottom of the South Island, the state-of-the-art facility was delivered on-time and within budget, an impressive achievement for a greenfield project.

“To achieve our goal, we knew that choosing only the best people, partners, and infrastructure was crucial,” says Brent Robinson, Mataura Valley Milk’s Projects Manager.

“The success of the project was a consequence of meticulous planning and strategy. We sought out and hired the most skilled staff; we chose construction partners with proven expertise; we purchased best-in-class plant and equipment; and we partnered with industry-leading suppliers and fabricators.”

Schneider Electric was one such expert partner that delivered its EcoStruxure solution, tailored to Mataura Valley Milk’s strict requirements for a fully connected and integrated facility with real-time visibility of every process.

Connectivity

At Mataura Valley Milk’s core is its dedication to customers.

“We must have agility around what we produce with no sacrifice of quality. Producing nutritional products is a complex, high reward approach so the plant must be nimble and our expertise unmatched. To confidently make these decisions, visibility and trust in our data is crucial” says Robinson.

Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Plant solution delivers and provides context to live, real-time data on every process at the plant through AVEVA’s System Platform, Batch Management and Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software.

In short, Mataura Valley employees receive any data they require immediately and know they can trust it.

Goal

Mataura Valley Milk wanted to build a business that could quickly tailor production to specific customer requirements while guaranteeing the delivery of best-in-class quality products. 

Mataura Valley Milk’s first operating season proved that the plant can consistently manufacture world-class nutritional products with microbial results well below standard requirements.

Over 3,300 Aerobic Plate Count tests were performed during the 2018/19 season to identify colony forming units per gram (cfu/g). Mataura Valley Milk’s highest recorded result was a mere 190 cfu/g, with the accepted limit being 5,000 cfu/g, believed to be a first for New Zealand and indicating that the plant’s critical hygiene areas and processes benchmark performance worldwide.

Schneider Electric specified a robust EcoStruxure Plant and Power solution that delivers connectivity across all layers of the operation, minimises energy usage, guarantees power quality, and provides real-time data so that transparency and integrity are maintained across the supply chain, from farm ingredients to manufactured products.

Results

A connected and scalable backbone that enables Mataura Valley Milk to seize market opportunities, secure in the quality of its product and the reliability of its infrastructure.

“We’re able to track and trace every ingredient on its journey from the farm and through the facility. This track-and-trace approach provides complete transparency and trust for our suppliers and customers.

“This visibility also contributes to our innovation programme and delivers great value in terms of R&D and process efficiencies. Data can’t be useful without precision and the Schneider solution gives us all the connectivity and accuracy we need.

“The Ecoteur solution delivers connectivity to all our business layers. It proves itself to us every day as we interrogate data in the MES. We’re able to fault find and resolve issues immediately, receive alerts on any irregular findings throughout the plant, test and introduce process efficiencies quickly, and positively affect our final product.” says Robinson.