Everybody is talking about process optimisation these days, especially within the area of IT services, consultants and so called strategists often claim new methods, usually wrapped in lots of buzzwords and three-letter-acronyms: Their goal is of course not only optimising processes, but at the same time – using appropriate software tools – to increase the quality and lower the costs. Unfortunately this usually doesn’t work that way for the customers. Instead the tool-vendors and their Consulting- and Training-Branches are making money. If expectations are not met, it’s basically customers’ or users’ fault, who didn’t order enough training or consulting services. Then usually someone starts the discussion about ‘Business-IT-Alignment‘, pointing the finger at the business user: Anything would be great if ‘they’ just had correctly defined their requirements.

The dairy farming industry proves that smart and intelligent tools can help to completely automate the truly manual process of milking cows. The milking robot Lely Astronaut A3 Next is able to autonomically milk cows. Not only that manual tasks are omitted, but also – through improved working conditions for the cows – the output is increased. They can decide on their own when to go inside the Astronaut for beeing milked. Using RFID tags the Astronaut is able to see if milking is necessary. If it is, their turn, the high tech robotic arm moves below the udder, detects the teads with a 3D-laser scanning system (Tead Detection System), cleans them and attaches the milking cups with a high accuracy and minimal stress for the cows.

The over-all result is, that after a short period of acclimatisation the herd has a greater yield. To ensure that only highest quality pure milk reaches the end customer, the Lely Astronaut has an integrated monitoring system, the so called MQC (Milk Quality Control) system, which controls the milk before it is pumped to the main tank. The whole process can be monitored by the farmer sitting in his rocking chair via an PDA or in front of his herd management workstation, utilizing the Lely T4C - (Time for cows) management software, which not only provides a dashboard with a number of KPIs but also allows benchmarking against other farmers in the world.

Not only the technology is interesting, but also the service lifecycle draws a good picture of this truly smart solution: The Ethernet-equipped Lely Astronaut A3 Next only requires 4 service assignments per year and is delivered as a fully integrated Plug-and-Play (milking from the first day) solution. To be able to afford the investments, and to minimize the capital expenditures the product can be purchased as a pay-per-milking offering.

Doesn’t this story sound like being from another galaxy?

For us IT people it will, but the Lely Astronaut A3 Next exists. Here you can see it action:

Here are some images:

[View with PicLens]

If you’d like to read more about the milking robot, a product brochure is available here <LINK>. It includes some really nice pictures of the product and also more pictures of happy cows.

By the way: The dutch manufacturer Lely has invented milking robots 20 years ago and improved their products since then year by year.