What are routine maintenance tasks for the dairy industry?

Works at a dairy manufacturing plant

Routine maintenance tasks for the dairy industry include system awareness and adjusting equipment according to manufacturers' recommendations. It’s important to ensure your core system works well, has regular inspections, and receives needed maintenance.

Daily Maintenance

Having an established daily routine that involves general equipment awareness and excellent hygiene practices will go a long way in creating an effective preventive maintenance program.

Milking Equipment Maintenance

Keeping the milking area and equipment clean will help extend the life of your assets and reduce costs of corrective chemical usage or emergency repairs.

Be sure your rubber components are smooth and do not ink off and that no holes exist in air tubes and liners as this can signal a potential leak or quality issue.

During daily routine washing, you can easily observe your equipment to look for leaks and ensure that the water flows well through the entire system. At this point, you may be able to see that gaskets need to be replaced or leaks need to be repaired before these issues affect your milk quality.

Regular Inspections

Whether other components of your milking system need to be inspected, replaced, or serviced will really depend on your equipment usage. In the dairy industry, tasks should be based on run-time or observation of problems.

For example, regularly check, clean and replace hoses as needed. If you remove and clean hoses when debris like straw or manure is observed, it will keep this debris from entering the pulsator, which can cause major problems.

Be sure claw and liner vents are unplugged, as clogged claw vents can increase vacuum pressure and impact cows' overall health.

One of the most important inspections is to check the liners on the pulsator to make sure they are operating properly. If the liners fail, you can end up with faulty milkings, which can quickly add up in a larger dairy and cause health problems for a dairy herd.

Professionals who inspect dairy equipment regularly find that pulsator malfunctions are present in more than half of all service calls, and many of these could have been detected with a quick finger test.

Coordinate With Partners

If you have invested in a scheduled maintenance program with an equipment dealer, be sure to maximize that relationship. The dealer may track and maintain service, but you’ll want to make sure it stays on schedule and coordinate their service activities with your own checks and maintenance tasks. Using a CMMS, you can ensure that all checklists are followed by personnel and equipment dealers.

In addition, if you have a route service agreement, you may be able to have another set of eyes to check things like water temperature, cleanliness, vacuum level and pump operation, when supplies and chemicals are delivered. Coordinate these checks with your service technician.

Excellent Record-Keeping

Besides understanding maintenance requirements and having a good process in place, you’ll also want to keep excellent records of what you’ve done, who has performed the work, and the problems that have come up. This information can provide you with a detailed history, as well as data to make decisions about changes in equipment or processes.

Incorporate a Mobile-First CMMS Solution

One excellent way to manage an excellent preventive maintenance program for a dairy is to invest in a mobile-first, computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). This can help you incorporate preventative maintenance schedules, prioritize work orders, and collect information in one central location.

A mobile-first solution such as UpKeep will allow you to add third-party dealers or partners as well, allowing them to enter the work and checks they have performed and to access background and maintenance records on equipment.

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