Plant Layout

Dairy functions and equipments require number of considerations. Therefore, best match of these considerations would give optimum layout to allow smooth plant operations without hindrance and cross contamination at economical cost. While finalizing the layout plan, future expansion of facilities and product line also need to be kept in mind. The ideal layout permits production of new product or modification in production system at the least possible expense and interruption in production schedule.

Good plant layout has short pipeline, least number of bends. As far as possible,sequencing of equipment should follow the process layout. Plant machinery should be placed apart at sufficient distance to allow movement for cleaning, operation and monitoring. Minimum holding of product during production is another aspect of consideration. Least possible stock of intermediary or in-process and finished item should be present on the production floor. The premises should allow use of the material handling equipment. Development of good layout should fulfill following objectives:

a. Improve or facilitate production operation,

b. Minimize material handling,

c. Have flexibility of operation for alterations and expansions,

d. Minimize investment in equipment,

e. Economize use of floor area,

f. Make labour utilization effective,

g. Make effective utilization of by-products,

h. Provide convenience and comfort for employees,

i. Ensure proper cleaning, operation and monitoring of processes, and

j. Prevent cross contamination.

The above points can be planned according to the type of layout. In multi purpose production system, product layout is preferred, whereas specialized production needs process oriented layout. Depending upon the requirement and nature of production, each function should have their optimized layout. All such individual layouts then be integrated to provide comprehensive dairy plant layout meeting the above mentioned objectives.

Design of Establishment

Manufacturing norms for Milk and milk products are covered under Essential Commodity Act like Prevention of Food Adulteration (FPA) and Milk and Milk Product Order (MMPO). After globalization under World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement, the manufacturing conditions can be looked with more stringent CODEX Food hygiene guidelines. Now with implementation of Food Safety and standards bill 2006 all food produces including milk products will have to meet its guidelines.

Depending upon the nature of the operations, and the risks associated with them, premises, equipment and facilities should be located, designed and constructed to ensure that:

a) Contamination is minimized to safe level;

b) Permits appropriate maintenance, cleaning and disinfections and minimize air borne contamination;

c) Surfaces and materials, in particular those in contact with food, are non-toxic and if necessary suitable for easy cleaning.

d) Where appropriate, suitable facilities are available for temperature, humidity and other controls; and

e) Effective protection against pest access and harborage.

Attention to good hygienic design and construction, appropriate location, and the provision of adequate facilities, is necessary to enable hazards to be effectively controlled. In this context, each aspect of dairy is discussed below:

i. Location

Suitable location for the establishment and equipment should include following considerations:

a) Establishments

•  To prevent potential sources of contamination to food.
•  No food establishment should be located in the hazard prone site.
•  Location should be away from environmentally polluted area that can contaminate food, such as, flooded, waste and infestations of pest prone area

 b) Equipment

•  Equipment should be properly located to permit adequate maintenance and cleaning.
• The location facilitates good hygienic practices and effective monitoring.

 ii. Premises and Rooms

Suitable consideration should be given depending upon requirement and nature of equipment:

a) Design and Layout: Where appropriate /applicable, the internal design and layout of food establishments should permit good food hygienic practices including protection against cross-contamination during manufacturing and storage.

b) Internal Structure and Fittings: structures within dairy establishment should be soundly built of durable materials and be easy to maintain, clean and /or disinfect. To achieve this, the surfaces of wall, ceiling and floor should be impervious and of non- food toxic materials. The surfaces should be smooth and allow proper removing of water, dirt and germs. The material of facilities or fittings coming in the direct contact of milk should be non-reactive type.

c) Temporary /Mobile premises and vending machines:

• Premises and structures like stalls, mobile sales and street vending points as temporary housing should be sited, designed and constructed to avoid, as far as reasonably practicable, contaminating food and harbouring pests.

 iii. Equipment and Containers

The design and construction of equipment and Containers handling milk and milk products should be given adequate consideration for cleaning, disinfecting and preventing food contamination. The contact surfaces should be made of materials with no toxic effect in the intended use of food. Design of equipment should facilitate easy movement and capability of disassembling to allow maintenance,cleaning, disinfecting, monitoring and inspecting pest. Other important requirement of processing equipment is to withstand processing condition without affecting food safety aspect. The equipment should have provision and capability for monitoring and control of process parameters. Containers for waste, by-products and inedible or dangerous substances should have specific identification, safe design and placement at appropriate location. Required safeguard should be made to prevent cross contamination from these containers or their contents.

iv. Design of Facilities

Dairy plant has to be provided with required facilities for water supply, drainage/waste disposal, cleaning system, personal hygiene, toilets, humidity, air and temperature control, lighting and storage of various materials. These are discussed below:

a) Water Supply: An adequate and potable water supply with appropriate storage,distribution and temperature control, should be available whenever necessary to ensure the safety and suitability of food. Supply and storage line for nonpotable water should be separate with proper identification. This requires proper selection of source of supply, pumping, storage and treatment units.

b) Drainage and disposal system: Adequate sanitary condition in and around plant can be maintained by proper arrangement for types of drains with cleaning and dis-infection arrangement. Slope of floor and drains is of equal importance to let-out the spillage and washings.

c) Cleaning: Cleaning of plant premises and equipment should have provision in the planning stage itself. Proper clearance and facilities need to be considered.When manual cleaning is either not possible or less effective, then alternative methods like cleaning –in-place should be employed.

d) Facilities for Personnel Hygiene: In order to prevent cross contamination from machine and materials to man and vice versa, required arrangements should be thought for necessary equipment, space and water supply. Good dairy plants have provisions of cloth changing and hand washing and drying. Other requirement relates to minimizing human contact with product. For this, most of the works are done by equipment and tools like trolley and shovel etc.

e) Temperature Control: Most of the dairy operations are temperature dependent. Heating, cooling or holding at certain temperature is required to obtain product of good microbial quality, flavor and texture. For this steam supply unit, refrigeration unit and temperature recording, monitoring and controlling mechanism are provided.

f) Air Supply System: Adequate air supply system should include compressor,inter-cooler, oil separator, air filters and drier /humidity controller. Air pipe line is provided to meet operation requirements of agitation, oxidation, control and / or conveying function. If air comes in direct contact of product, then its proper hygienic quality should be ensured.

g) Lighting: Design should consider availability of adequate natural light. However provision of artificial light needs to be made according to the requirement of operation. A minimum illumination requirement in lumen per square meter for functions like reception, processing, cleaning is approximately 500 to 600,monitoring places like weighing, equipment with gauges, filling & inspection, laboratory and accounting is approx. 1000 and for common places like corridor and utility section is 200 to 300.

h) Storage: Adequate facilities should be provided for the storage of food, ingredients and non-food chemicals (e.g. cleaning materials, lubricant fuels).Appropriate, food storage facilities should be designed and constructed to permit adequate cleaning and maintenance, avoid pest access and harbourage, enable food to be effectively protected from contamination, and provide proper environment that minimizes the deterioration. Storage of edible, non-edible and hazardous materials should be separate.

v. Space Consideration

Space requirement for facilities and equipment varies from make to make and model to model for a given capacity. Functional areas or rooms in a plant must not be crowded or sized far larger than necessary. Therefore, the structure and civil arrangement is made precisely, one has to either select specific model /make process /product line or has to approximate the requirements. In the first type of arrangement, selected supplier may be requested to detail the space requirement.However, the planning of a dairy is done in advance before selection of a particular equipment /model or manufactures; hence, for effective planning , one has to depend on certain guidelines, which are given below for general purpose:

1. For a medium size milk plant, the area should be 2 to 3 sq.m per 100 litres of milk, whereas for small plant of less than 10000 Lit.per day, space requirement will be approximately 6 to 7 sq.m per 100 lit. milk.

2. Approximately 75000 lit milk can be stored in 200 sq.meter area cold store.

3. Approx. 50 kg ghee or butter can be stored per sq.meter area.

4. 750 Kg milk powder in 25 kg bags would require approx. one sq.meter storage space.

5. Dry storage area should constitute approx. 25% of the total plant area.

6. Refrigeration and steam boilers each requires approx. one fifth sq.m per 100 lits milk

7. Processing area should be five times the size of equipments

8. At-least one meter space is considered good between two equipment.

9. If floor area available is insufficient, then vertical type of storage tanks /vessels should be preferred. Now for storage of chilled water, insulated silos are becoming popular, which requires less space and can be installed outside of plant. Similarly, milk storage tank can be kept outside of the constructed building.

10. While considering the requirement of hardening room, a minimum of five days production would be required.

11. Milk reception, storage tank and product sections require approximately 10% of the plant area. CIP, Laboratory, personal hygiene and rest room etc.

Selection of Plant Equipment

Some of the important points for deciding equipments are detailed below:

a) Finalize the production technology,

b) Find out number of equipments with their capacities,

c) Finalize production line. Some plants have process sequence, whereas others are specific to products. Production line would be finalized according to the multiple use of processes and requirement of products having provision to get maximum benefits,

d) Look at the cleaning and sanitary provision to allow maintenance, cleaning, disinfection, monitoring and inspection.

e) The material of construction should be non-reactive, non-toxic and of food grade quality specially that coming in the direct contact of milk. It should be able to withstand heat treatment processes like heating and cooling. Materials of heat transferring equipment should be good heat conductors.

f) Wherever necessary, equipment should have provision for controlling and monitoring of temperatures, humidity, airflow and other parameters which,otherwise would be considered as detrimental to food safety.

g) Space requirement for equipment should be analyzed.

h) Utility requirements associated with the product and equipment.

i) Spacing between adjacent equipment and service pipelines to facilitate maintenance.

j) Develop flow diagram to identify sequence of operations and flow of materials.

k) Consider the housing requirement for each product and equipment. Some products need to be manufactured in controlled atmosphere and need proper building, whereas others manufactured within the equipment kept in open.Similarly some of the equipment requires proper housing and others need open air for their efficient operation.

In dairy industry you will find lot of examples to observe the above situations. For examples, ammonia condenser used in the refrigeration plant needs to be kept in open for maximum dissipation of heat, whereas milk vats need to be placed in the sanitary place with complete enclosure. While visiting a dairy plant one can have notice of such aspects.

a) Find out economy of material handling by using natural or gravity flow.

b) Find out operation economy by proper location of section or equipment. In other words, we should not place openings of low temperature or cold room directly facing to west if frequent openings are to be in the second half of the day. Similarly, openings or doors of high hygiene production area should not open towards the unhygienic area, without safety measure like air curtain or anti-room.After giving full considerations to above aspects, next planning step would be to design establishment for production and other facilities.

Estimation of Capacity

Successful design of dairy plant largely depends on selection of facilities and equipment for appropriate handling of the various resources involved in the manufacturing of products. Therefore, one of the foremost step would be to estimate the capacity of a dairy and, ear- mark production of various products with capacity. Other requirements like equipment, utilities, structure and manpower will be function of the estimated capacity of dairy. Generally following main factors are taken into consideration:

a. Milk shed area and its potentiality,

b. Future possibility of expansion,

c. Nearby dairy plant, its distance and expansion possibilities,

d. Productivity of animals and future aspects affecting milk production,

e. Connectivity of villages, possibilities for milk procurement and expected development,

f. Social tendencies for milk business,

g. Allied occupation of farmers and extent of their sustainability,

h. Government policies for augmenting milk production,

i. Change in life style, purchasing power of consumers and nutritional awareness among people.

Site Location

The criterion, which has foremost operational importance, is minimum cost for procurement, production and distribution. Other essential factors which should favour the location include topography, shape and size of site, availability of water,power and fuel and, climatic conditions. However due to increased pollution and

industrialization, all sites are not permitted for industrial work. Some states or central government give incentive for development of certain industry on specified locations. Therefore, all such points to be analyzed judiciously for finding out the best location.

Planning Considerations for Dairy Plant

Planning for dairy plant should consider following aspects:

a) Forecasting for milk business with regards to milk procurement and marketing;

b) Market analysis for product demand;

c) Availability & requirement of land, topography to suit disposal of waste and communication;

 d) Analysis for requirement and availability of water; and

e) No objection from municipal, pollution and aviation authorities.

Depending upon the status of above-mentioned factors, dairy plant of desired capacity could be designed for processing and production of selected products.Accordingly full considerations is to be given for selection of plant location, design and layout.

Classification of Dairy Plant

Precisely looking at the basic production features and core operations, dairy plants could be categorized as liquid milk processing plants, products manufacturing plants or combination of these two (Composite Dairy Plants).

a) Liquid milk Processing Plant: In such dairy plant raw milk received at dock,is chilled, processed (pasteurized) and packed for sale. These plant directly procure milk from identified milk sheds or other sources. This type of plant has low value addition but the liquidity of money is very high. The liquidity is better because payment for raw milk is done after 7 or 10 days, whereas realization is either in advance or on the same day. Secondly, the realization money is circulated on daily basis creating an edge for low requirement of working capital.

b) Product Manufacturing Dairy Plants: Raw milk is transformed into value added milk and milk products by employing suitable technologies and using proper equipment. Manufacture of value added products improve the profitability of the overall milk business. Other advantage lies in the conversion of perishable milk into long shelf life products. This aspect has high impact due to perishable and seasonal nature of milk production. Long shelf life products are also suitable for distant marketing.

c) Composite Dairy Plant: Most of the dairy plants do have facilities for processing and packing of liquid milk and milk products. In this way, dairy plant can be benefited for high liquidity along with the advantage of increased shelf life and value addition. Such milk plants are more viable and sustainable.

Dairy Plant Design and Layout

Milk processing plants, converting raw milk into processed milk and /or milk products are usually termed as dairy plant or simply dairies. Numbers of unit operations are carried out to transform raw milk into value added finished products,employing all sorts of resources like raw ingredients, utilities (water, air, electricity,

refrigeration, steam and waste treatment etc.), plant - machinery and human resource. All these resources are housed in one or more buildings located in campus. In order to optimize the economy of interactions between these housings and various resources, the various factors need to be considered in the planning

stage. A good planning, therefore, helps in smooth flow of resources towards effective operations to create hygienic atmosphere during production at one hand and economy of operation and value addition on the other.

In our country less than 15% of total milk production is processed in dairy plant in organized sector. Rest is either consumed at home or used in unorganized production centers like sweet makers. Most of the plants are underutilized.Especially during lean period the capacity utilization goes further down. Operation of unnecessary larger size plants and equipment becomes uneconomical due to more expenses for their operation along with other overheads, which depends on size and capacity of the plant and equipments. In this way, improperly design dairy plants require higher investment and working capital. Therefore, various

factors that are relevant to design and layout of dairy plant, must be looked into.

Optimizing Use of Human Resource

Dairy involves numerous operations requiring large number of workmen. Therefore,the productivity in dairy is highly dependable on the effective use of deployed manpower. It has been observed that under and over strength of manpower are unproductive and undesirable. Therefore, the best way is to deploy optimum strength and manage high productivity of each individual. Some of the relevant management concepts to optimize human resource are discussed below:

i. Leadership

Leadership is the vital point of contact between the workforce and their higherups.It is in fact the activity of influencing people to strive willingness for organizational objectives. Good leadership does this by lifting people’s vision to higher sights,raising of their performance to a higher standard and building of their personality beyond the normal limitations.

ii. Motivation Concepts

We know that human behaviour varies with circumstances and motivational factors.Motives or needs of a person are the real starting point and hence, is the core of management process. It is an effective instrument in inspiring the workforce to perform the duties by fully utilizing their skills and capabilities. The motivation and its influencing factors are explained by various theories. Some of them are given below to understand the process:

a) Maslow’s Theory: It is a need-based theory, which states that motive for work is developed for satisfying needs in hierarchical manner. Satisfaction of basic needs like physiological, safety, social will lead to motivation for higher needs such as ego and self- fulfillment /self actualization needs.

b) E-P-V Theory: Expectancy-Potentiality–Valence (E-P-V) theory states that combine effect of these three factors will determine ones inner urge to motivate or de-motivate for a particular work. Person will think of performing only if he perceives that he has ability to perform( factor E), that his efforts will result in the desired output(factor P) and the output has importance to him(factor V). The value of E and P varies from 0 to 1, whereas value of V could be from (-1) to(+1).

c) Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory: Hygiene factors also termed, as maintenance factor that support employees’ mental health are responsible for motivation. Their presence do not motivate, whereas the absence of these factors dissatisfies the employees. Hence they provide only working environment.

d) McGregor’s Participation Theory: Based on “X Theory” and “Y Theory” workmen can be controlled. X Theory favors persuasion for doing work by coercing, controlling, directing, threatening, punishing, whereas Y Theory believes in persuasion by positive management style.Therefore, understanding these theories can help the management to recognize requirement of workforce, set realistic targets, create congenial atmosphere and facilities to improve their abilities and implement right performance evaluation and reward/punishment policies.

iii. Skill Enhancement

As you have recognized in the motivation theories skill and ability of work force is very important. This can be achieved by identifying training needs of workforce and providing necessary support to fulfil them. A trained person better perceives his capabilities and performs the task more confidently. Training develops necessary knowledge, attitude and skills

iv. Management of Resistance to Change

It is rightly said that every action has its reaction. In similar way every furtherance of work, implementation of new methodology or technology, there happens to be a resistance to change, which if not managed appropriately in time, be detrimental to the productivity. This resistance would overcome by taking all concern human resource in confidence by correct assessment of impacts due to change, planning and undertaking actions to overcome these impacts and create awareness with effective communication involving good listening of suggestions.

v. Effective Communication

Communication involves a systematic and continuous process of telling, listening and understanding. This is an interchange of thought or information to bring about mutual understanding and confidence. It is the exchange of facts, ideas and viewpoints that brings about commonness of interest, purpose and efforts.Communication can be formal or informal, verbal or written and downward,upward or sideward depending upon the situation and requirement. Communication involves communicator/teller, message, communication symbols, communication channel and receiver/listener. Quality in these determines the overall effectiveness of communication. In order to have effective communication various barriers such as organization structure, status and position, semantic or language problem,screening or filtering of information, resistance of change and perception involved in the process must be understood to overcome them. For becoming good speaker,one has to be good listener too.

vi. Effective Coordination

Coordination is an orderly arrangement of group efforts to provide unity of action in the pursuit of common objectives. By effective coordination workforce can be utilized to put efforts for achieving unity of purpose.

Human Resource Planning

Planning of human resource should be practical enough to match the dairy plant requirements. Proper planning ensures determination of optimum manpower strength and quality for recruiting process. Various aspects like details of dairy unit operations,their labour requirement with respect to number and skill is considered as input for planning. In some areas trained and skilled manpower is employed with desired experience and qualification, whereas as in other areas only physical qualities and behavior aspects are looked into. In order to have effective planning of human resource we shall discuss below various influencing aspects:

i. Functional Requirement of Plant

Planning consideration of dairy plants includes requirement of various functions.Management of milk shed and procurement of milk, processing, maintenance and utilities, materials management, accounting and finance, marketing, quality assurance,personal management and management information system are the most prominent functions of dairy organizations. Independency of these functions varies greatly on the size of organization and style of management. Therefore, manpower planning may include requirements of these functions with respect to nature, volume and level of specialization. In general, manpower requirement is in the form of ordinary(unskilled), semi skilled and fully skilled workers. Less skillful job involving physical labour is done by unskilled workers, whereas jobs with more technicalities require semi-skilled or skilled personnel like technicians, operators, supervisors, typists,marketing staff, accounts clerk / accountant / officers and managers. Qualification and experience are determined as per the level of responsibility and degree of technicality. Generally, candidates with basic qualification are employed and later on suitable exposure and training is provided to improve their skill. Continuous assessment is done to ensure proper training and implement motivating schemes.

ii. Organizational Structure

Manpower planning has to go with the organizational structure involving and interworking all of its functions. A most commonly used organizational structure of dairy plant is given in figure. The working of departments other than plant work is done in day shift, whereas plant work is done in one or more shifts based on workload or market requirements. A typical shift structure is depicted in figure. Production, maintenance and quality control functions require round the clock working through shifts. Usually three shift operations are common in dairy plants. Shifts are headed by senior managers and supported by lower management level functional in-charges for processing, production, quality control and maintenance. Each of these functions is provided with required manpower in each shift. Shift in-charges head all the line functions of the their shift.

Organizational Structure for a Dairy Plant

Structure of Shift in Dairy Plants

iii. Factors Affecting Human Resource Deployment

There are numerous factors that influence manpower requirements of dairy plants.In manpower deployment, two important aspects, namely, skill and strength(number), are of great consideration. Most significant factors are being discussed below:

i) Capacity and Size of Dairy Plant: The installed capacity and its expected utilization in the future have considerable influence on workmen deployment.Some times due to size and shape of plant and its technicality more workmen are required in-spite of low plant capacity utilization.

ii) Products and Product Technology: Pack-sizes and complexity of production are the two highly influencing factors. Liquid milk is sold both in retail pack size and bulk (Cans / tankers etc.). Milk products are also manufactured in retail packs and in bulk depending upon the marketing requirement. It is observed that retail-packing operations demand higher number of personnel as compared to bulk packs. Dairy products are as simple as market milks and as complex as cheese and accordingly, the product technology has influence on the manpower requirement. Products that are manufactured through automatic plant machinery require less manpower, whereas indigenous technology based products using human art and skill require more manpower.

iii) Level of Automation: Level of plant automation varies greatly from plant to plant and function to function. Old and traditional plants have less automation compared to modern plants. Automation requires less manpower and result in better product hygiene. In automated plants labour requiring operations like product shifting, transportation and filling are carried out through conveyor,pumps and suitable equipments. In the modern dairy plants, monitoring of plant operations and process parameters is done through sensors and controls.

iv) Equipment Requirements: Equipment features such as requirements relating to material loading/unloading and cleaning process has influence over manpower requirement.

v) Number of Shift Operation: In general, a complete operation of dairy is done in three shifts, but in several cases it is also done in one or two shifts.Some times number of shifts are increased due to constraint of milk availability,process / packing machine and/or storage facilities. In such cases, bottlenecks decrease throughput of plant and increase working hours. In dairy, normally

milk procurement and marketing is done in two shifts i.e. morning or day shift and evening or night shift, but in most of the cases due to continuity of operation, the operations are divided into three shifts viz; 1st, 2nd and 3rd shift(each of 8 hours). Therefore, these factors must be considered while planning manpower requirement.

vi) Legal Provision: Labour welfare department enforce guidelines with respect to working and rest hour / period to prevent harassment of personnel. While planning manpower requirement these guidelines and other state legislation should be considered in judicious manner.

vii) Seasonal Variations: Dairy business has a great influence of seasons and festivals. During summer month, milk procurement goes down, whereas demand for milk and milk products in market goes up. Similar variations are also seen during festival period. The above changing situations do influence manpower requirement to meet operational compulsions. To deal with such trends, dairies need to hire or reduce workers on temporary basis. The employment or curtailment of worker is possible only for un-skilled category, whereas the same is normally not practicable for jobs requiring skilled personnel.

viii) Centralized or Decentralized Operations: Some times dairies have raw milk reception and chilling operation away from the main processing plant.These plants receive only chilled raw milk in bulk through tankers. In such situations manpower requirement reduces to a great extent due to absence of can milk reception, sampling, testing and cleaning operation. Similarly, provision of bulk storage do influence manpower requirement.

ix) Degree of Contractual Arrangement: Some of the dairy plants cope up increased workload through contractual job arrangement. Such arrangements are done for cleaning of cans and crates, product packing and product shifting/movement. Sub-contract of production, packing and transportation work has become more common. Such arrangements drastically reduces extra and regular workers requirement.

iv. Manpower Quality Aspects

As discussed above dairy plants involve ordinary to specialized and labour intensive to automatic operations. Operation and maintenance of sophisticated plant machinery, laboratory instruments and other services including book keeping,accounting and marketing do require trained manpower with basic qualifications.The selected manpower is then further trained according to the requirement of operations. In order to have proper quality, some basic criteria are to be laid

down as discussed below:

a) Operation of Dairy Plant & Machinery: The candidate should have basic knowledge of machines. As far as possible candidate should be ITI qualified in the trade of Fitter or electrical with required practical apprenticeship training.Matriculate or non-ITI background candidates with appropriate experience may be considered for process machinery operations.

b) Chemical Analysis: Laboratory work-involving analysis of raw and finished products by scientific testing requires candidates with chemistry background and therefore graduates in Chemistry, Dairy/Food technology/Agriculture are suitable for such jobs.

c) Microbiological Analysis: Dairy products need to be tested for their microbiological quality. Various analyses like efficiency of cleaned surface, hygiene of surrounding atmosphere and bacteriological quality of ingredients and finished products etc. are done to ensure this aspect. To carry out this work, professionally qualified candidates with B.Sc in microbiology/ Dairy /Food technology are suitable.

d) Material Management: Now a day due to high degree of competition and cost, the procurement and safe storage of various materials has become highly scientific and specialized job. An experienced science graduate or qualified material management professional would accomplish such jobs with effectiveness.

e) Marketing and Distribution: Highly perishable nature of milks and milk products requires experienced personnel to carry out the operations and promotional activities.

f) Accounting and Finance work: Dairy plant requires two types of accounting.One is related to accounting of various materials (physical accounting) during manufacturing. Whereas, other type of accounting relates to financial transactions related to fund flow. Technical background personnel would better do former type of accounting, whereas latter type of accounting requires skills and knowledge in accounting and book keeping including financial analysis and preparation of books of account.

g) Supervision and Managerial work: Dairy plants involve supervision of numerous operations and personnel. In order to effectively supervise the work,entire operation is divided in to shift operations and section wise work (refer Tables). Shift or section in-charges look after the work and people under their jurisdiction. In order to have effective supervision, the in-charge should be professionally qualified and have good grasp of the entire work. Dairy plant production work is normally looked after by dairy or food technologist /engineers, whereas quality control is headed by qualified dairy/food technologists,chemists or microbiologists. Utility section is headed by technical professional;such as dairy, mechanical, electrical or chemical engineer. Manager of the dairy plant should be highly experienced technologist or engineer with sufficient knowledge of planning, administration and information technology. Milk procurement activities are suitably headed by veterinary, dairy or agriculture graduates having experience of organizing dairy co-operatives and looking after milk procurement routes.

v. Determining Manpower Strength in Dairy

Manpower planning includes determination of number of personnel along with their qualification. There is no fixed guideline for calculating number of personnel.However understanding the functional requirement and Organizational Structure along with other influencing factors as detailed in the paragraph will be of immense help. We are illustrating below examples focusing on major dairy functions.

a) Milk Collection: Bulk reception may require one operator and one helper,whereas can reception would require 9 to 14 persons depending upon level of automation. Suitably trained personnel are required for skillful operations like grading, weighing and sampling. Straight through or rotary washer requires atleast two persons, whereas one worker each is required for can scrubber, steam block and inspection of can condition and cleaning status. One operator is separately needed for looking after operation of general cleaning & milk movement from dump vat to storage tank.

b) Milk Processing: To carry out milk processing one operator with one dairyman is required. These dairy personnel may also look after the work of CIP cleaning work.

c) Milk Packing: Milk packing machine needs one person per head. Two persons for crate washer, two people each for crate loading and unloading and two people for crate stacking in cold room are optimum. One extra person for cleaning and pouch weight monitoring is desirable.

d) Creamery Section: One operator per shift for butter manufacture per machine, two workers for butter movement to ghee section and two person for ghee making are required. One skilled packing machine operator would be desirable in each shift.

e) Indigenous Products: The manpower requirement depends on level of automation and layout of production facilities including product mix and product technology.

f) Powder Plant: Plant operations including bagging and arranging bagging material required two to three persons per shift in a fully automatic plant. However, at low level of automation the manpower requirement will be more.

g) Utility Section: Under the trained and qualified sectional head, there would be supervisors for looking after sub-sections like boiler, refrigeration, mechanical and electrical maintenance. Boiler section requires a boiler operator with one attendant, similarly refrigeration section need one or two operators per shift depending upon plant layout and number of machines in operation. One electrician, fitter and welder per shift along with helper is considered optimum for maintaining smooth operations.

vi. Manpower Planning for Shift

Manpower planning of shift operations is determined in two situations:

a) As an integral part of planning to determine and select manpower for dairy,based on shift operation. In this case, the factors discussed in paragraph  needs to be assessed for meeting requirements of shift-operations, monitoring,accounting, quality analysis and management.

b) Second situation of manpower planning for shift arises in the event of revising shift strength on account of change in production schedule, changing of personnel in the shift and shift rotation. Planning process in this case would include assessment of manpower availability with respect to skill and strength, products and production schedule, weekly offs, leave and other holidays, plant operations and work to fulfill the production schedule.

In turn, on totaling manpower requirements of all the shifts, we get overall manpower requirement of dairy plant.

Human Resources(Man Power Planning for Dairy Plant)

It goes without saying that human resource is of primary importance to any productive activity. In a dairy plant, which is considered to be highly labour intensive, the proper planning and use of human power become highly significant to get proper productivity. Manpower in the form of labours, supervisors and management personnel needs to be properly selected and deployed to have optimum output and to carry out operations smoothly. Suitable policies and strategies should be practiced to up keep high level of human motivation towards the dairy plant operations. Proper work culture establishes belongingness among personnel and ensures self-motivation for work. The atmosphere becomes so congenial that all human resource from labours to managers behaves in the context of the organizational objectives.

Computer Application in Dairy Industry

Computer is used for varieties of purposes in dairy industry. The requirement has been increasing due to its attractive features. Its application as management information system (MIS) for effective decision making, optimizing product mix,product composition, procurement and distribution routes, inventory management and maintenance of plant –machineries etc. has been found very popular. We are discussing some of them here:

i. Computerized MIS in Milk Procurement:

a) Milk Billing: Analysis of data for number of milk supplying centers based on quality and quantity was a tiresome job before the computerized billing system came in dairy industry. One can visualize receiving milk in two shifts from thousands of procurement centers. Added with this dynamics, there are other  complex payment conditions relating to milk procurement and pricing policies{(good /sour/curdled), fat basis, double axis basis, total solids basis, incentives for promoting milk procurement quantity and quality, negative incentives forcontrolling non-genuine and poor quality milk etc.}. A number of persons were required in manual system to manage this, which was time consuming and less flexible too. But the computer application made it feasible to frequently bill and pay.

b) MIS for other procurement related activities: Similarly, computer application has proved a boon in managing huge information relating to milk collection,quality monitoring, technical inputs, monitoring of artificial insemination activities and providing timely payment to milk producers. Computerized information system can help to determine milk procurement cost and its impact on sale price. Quick analysis of milk value would be helpful in effective purchase of milk and conserve commodities.

c) Optimize scheduling of milk procurement routes: Data bank about milk routes,capacities of vehicles, reception timing and quality status helps in scheduling of routes 

ii. Optimization of Product Composition

Operational research techniques are used in formulation of products to have optimization for PFA norms, nutritive value and cost factor. Linear programming by involving large number of variables is utilized in the optimization technique.Maximum and minimum limits of individual and group ingredients is included in the programming .

iii. Plant Automation

Automation with fully integrated or part wise is done to suit the dairy’s requirement.Fully automatic plant employs automatic operations for the entire operations. As discussed earlier, data are captured on computer system for milk quantity and quality. Based on the collection and demand of the market for milk and milk product, planning is done. Full automation with on line displays/ messages keep informed for timely monitoring. All information regarding stock of milk and milk products, receipt /dispatches, losses etc. are known without any lapse of time to manage the operations. Computerized operations can control the product quality in better way. For this sensor or good sensitivity is employed to measure the process outcome. Sensor feed back is given to controller for adjustment of variable that are responsible for quality attribute.

iv. Product Mix Models

Based on the availability and cost of raw materials including milk, market demand,opening stock and value addition of products, a product mix decision is taken by using computer software employing linear programming models.

v. Computerized Accounting System

Computerized accounting is a normal phenomenon in most of the organization. All the input data of transactions are fed into the system on batch or on-line basis.The system gives all the report as per the management requirements. Finalization of account is possible within a short time. All the financial reports including trading account, profit & loss account and Balance Sheet can be taken out promptly.Computerized system also helps in employees’ salary payment, vendor payment and furnishing of all legal return along with deposition of contributions. Similarly accounting of milk and milk products to monitor and control handling losses is quite effective to have control over losses by the use of computers.

vi. Computerized MIS Application in HR Management

In manual system due to problem of speed, various personnel issues were not getting management attention leading to de-motivation. Personnel information can be effectively stored in data bank and utilized for boosting personnel moral.

vii. Networking for Wider MIS Application

Organizations are utilizing benefits of Networking by connecting one department and /or organization through computerized system. More information and better monitoring is feasible with the help of wide area networking applications. National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) Anand has developed computerized networking system by networking of all the milk unions and federations. Some of such usage of computer includes use of GIS, National Information Network (NIN) etc.

viii. Preventive Maintenance

The data /information of each equipment /machine with required periodicity is helpful in carrying out preventive maintenance effectively. Operator / Technician in manual system and auxiliary equipment in the automatic system will perform the operation of preventive maintenance as per the displayed instruction of computer based on the input data. This will help in automatic generation of break down and maintenance information required for management decision of optimum resource utilization.

ix. Utilities Management

Computer application in the monitoring of utilities is of a great importance. Dairy plant requires important utilities like refrigeration, steam, water and electricity. By the use of computer prompt information and control can be exercised to get quality service.

x. Application in Packaging and Statistical Quality Control

Computer application in packaging of products to ensure content, labeling, selecting source of content to pack is of a great value. Statistical quality control can be effectively implemented with the help of computers.

xi. Application in Vendor Development

Computer is used in material management function for inventory control, report generation, generation of orders and vendor performance assessment. This ensures cost effective sourcing of quality materials.