Introduction

A dairy plant is an essential aspect for a community. It's got many good effects

ranging from

economic to social point of view. We students of Computer engineering , chose to visit DDC(Dairy
Development Corporation) plant in Hetauda ,southern Nepal with a purpose to make a good understanding of
semi- automatic machines. The plant is located in Hetauda Industrial District(HID), Hetauda. The company
was established with a purpose of being a popular dairy brand in Nepal. The plant was established in 2032
B.S. at HID. Although it was established first with the sole purpose of milk supply, it now serves in the field
of yogurt, ghee, paneer, ice-cream, peda, etc.
Since Neplease society is hugely dependent in dairy products, it was necessary to implement a
better and effective way for the plant which ensured an economic production of dairy products with no
contamination.
During our visit we looked the design of the system, found some drawbacks and proposed a
better design for the plant.

Objective of the case Study

The objective of the case study is to make a detailed understanding of the semi-automatic
instrumentation system along with the following goals.
To choose a plant and learn its operation.
To study the existing management of the system.
To learn about the cost of installation and ways to minimize it by the microprocessor based
system.
To propose a solution to boost the efficiency of a system.

Overview of Diary Processing System

For the plant, milk is collected from different parts of Hetauda. The milk collected

by testing and

only the samples with good composition is selected with proper compensation for the farmers. The density of
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milk is measured and sample is tested with lactometer. Milk is brought to industry in large insulated tankers
twice a day. The choice of individual processes and sequences will depend upon end product being
manufactured. Although there are different external views for different plants, the core process is the
same. The core process is shown below in a block diagram.

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Unit Processes
All dairy products start with raw milk obtained from the farm. The raw milk generally is transport
with tankers.

Filtration
To ensure that milk is free of contamination, milk is filtered with the help of large cottonlumps to remove any sorts of huge foreign products like insects, leafs etc. Milk is then passed to a
standardization process.
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Separator
A separator is a centrifugal device that separates milk into cream and schemed milk. Manual rotation
of the separator handle turn a worm gear mechanics which causes the separator bowl to spin at
thousands of rpm. When spun, the heavier milk is pulled outward and the lighter cream is separated
towards the centre. Thus cream and milk flow out of separate paths.

Standardization
When the raw milk is brought for standardization, it is again taken to a centrifuge to ensure
no more particulates are in the milk and cooled to 4 degree Celsius. Now stored raw milk is kept

at 4 degree Celsius prior to processing, usually by way of a jacketed storage tank. The first
step is standardization whose objective of which is to ensure proper fat contents and solid
nonfat contents (SNF).Ensuring proper fat content can be done one of two ways. Both
processes use a centrifuge to separate the low fat content and dense scheme protein from
the high fat content and dense cream portion.

Pasturization
The object of pasteurization is to inactivate micro organisms and pathogens. These
contents can spoil the milk. Pasteurization doesnt kill spores or some thermophilic micro
organisms which leads to relatively short shelf life and refrigeration requirement of most
pasteurized dairy products. The pasteurization and sterilization was done at the same time
by the batch process where a tank of milk is heated to a specific temp and held for a specific
length of time by steam. The product is then heated for at least 69 degree Celsius .And then
held for 30 minutes to satisfy legal requirements for Pasteurization. This process kills the
pathogens and microbes present.

Homogenization
The homogenation should take place at pasteurization temperature. Milk is composed of water soluble
components. And also fat soluble components that will separate if not homogenized. This results in
phenomenon of creaming. The purpose of homogenation is to break of the fat globules into smaller sizes and
disperse them in the water soluble components. This prevents them from coalescing and forming the separate
layer. Homogenation provides major work in ice cream manufacturing process by giving smoother increase
resistance in melting, increased surface area of ice cream. This is done using a 3 piston pump to create a
large pressure drop across a small opening that the milk steam is forced through.

Cold Storage
Cold storage is used for most diary products after production. Refrigerated storage for milk,
curd, cheese butter and other products is used to delay the growth of pathogens that can damage the final

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products, It is used to prevent undesirable physical and chemical changes such as drying, oxidation or
deformation of yogurt, butter and ice cream.
The above processes are common for milk, yogurt and ice cream production. Following are the details for the
upcoming processes.

Milk Production

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The milk is then homogenized and it is left to cool at the temp of about 4-6 degree
centigrade and left for about an hour. After that the chilled milk is transported to the packing
area where it is packed automatically and then dispatched. The dispatched milk is then
stored in the cold storage and distributed to the stores.

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Ice-cream Production

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The first step of ice-cream production includes blending of low fat milk with milk fat source,
nonfat solids, stabilizers and emulsifiers to ensure complete mixing of liquid and dry
ingredients. After that the process continues as per the unit process upto the cooling
processes, obtained from the homonizer through batch process.

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Image
A high speed blender is used to mix all ingredients.
The mix is then aged for at least four hours and usually overnight. This allows time for fat to
cool down and crystallize and for the proteins and polysaccharides to fully hydrate. Aging is
performed in insulated or refrigerated storage tanks, silos etc. Mix temperature should be
maintained as low as possible without freezing, at or below 5C.
Following the mixture it is added with flavor and fruit colors as per the market demand. The
mix then enters the batch freezing process which both freezes a portion of water and whips
air into the frozen mix. Mix is pumped through this freezer and is drawn off the other end in a
time interval of 10 to 15 minutes in the case of batch freezers with about 50% of its water
frozen. After that the ice-cream is packaged and labeled and is placed into a blast freezer at
-30C to -40C where most of the remainder of the water is frozen. Below about -25C, icecream is stable for indefinite periods without danger of ice crystal growth; however above
this temperature, ice crystal growth is possible and the rate of crystal growth is dependent
upon the temperature of storage.

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Yogurt Production

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Yoghurt is a ferreted milk product that contains the characteristic bacterial cultures
Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. All yoghurts must contain at least
8.25% solids not fat. The main ingredient in yoghurt is milk. The type of milk used depends
upon the type of yoghurt-whole milk for full fat yoghurt, low fat milk for low-fat yoghurt and
skin milk for non-fat yoghurt. Different types of yoghurt require a wide range of
compositions, which are achieved by standardization. After the harmonization the product is
left to cool at a temperature of -42C. After that the product is passed into fermentation tank
where it is cultured. The function of the starter cultures is to ferment lactose (milk sugar) to
produce lactic acid. The increase in lactic acid decreases pH and causes milk to clot or form
the soft gel that is characteristic of yoghurt. The fermentation of lactose also produces the
flavor compounds. The milk is held at 42C until a pH 4.5 is reached. This allows a
fermentation to progress to form a soft gel and the characteristic flavor of yoghurt. This
process can take several hours and the yoghurt is cooled to 7C to stop fermentation process.
Fruit and flavors are added at different steps depending on the type of yoghurt. The yoghurt
is pumped from the fermentation vat and packaged in a desired weight.

Limitation of the existing system

Though the company started recently, it couldn't install the desire equipment's due to low
budget. The milk was poured down from tankers and different processes were carried out as
pasteurization, harmonization, it is fed to the Automatic Liquid packaging machine
(DXDY=1000AII).Due to its low cost ranging from $1000-$1500 it is widely used in small
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dairy production. The main problem with the existing system is that an operator has to take
a regular measurement of milk manually in a regular interval in order to make sure the
correct volume milk is being packed by the machine. If the volume of milk is different from
the desired volume, the operator has to adjust the rate of flow of liquid by turning a knob
behind the packing machine.

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So there is the need of continuous observation of volume of packed milk. As the products
were packed continuously, it was the duty that it should be put in the storage room for the
protection from microbes and heating. For that purpose there was the requirement for more
work force.
There was no connection between one kind of system and the standardization.
Homogenation, pasturization etc. Operators manually looked at each system, more work
force was needed to look after different systems then the product were transferred from one
to another for further process.
Electricity is used throughout the dairy processing industry to drive processes
motors fans, pumps and compressed air system as well as building lights and HVAC system.
In addition to machine, drives one of the primary use of electricity is for process cooling,
freezing and cold storage, the cost of product is also affected by the energy consumption
rate. Different systems need different levels of energy at different period, So to get the
desired product it should have monitored, thus it increases the cost of production.

Proposed System
There are many automatic milk packing machine to market which checks the volume of milk
as per the requirement and with much accuracy. PLCs are equipped with inbuilt programs in
RAM, are used as they are armored for severe conditions such as dust, moisture, heat, cold
and have the facility for extensive input or output arrangements.

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A PLC is like a specialized computer. Since it is a computer, it has all the basic
components that any other comp has a centre processing unit CPU, memory, input
interfacing and output interfacing.
A PLC is a control deice, It takes information through input modules sensed by
sensor and makes decisions either to activate or deactivate actuators(process devices)
through output modules. The decisions are made based on status of inputs and outputs and
the ladder logic program that is being executed.

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It works on the simple operation of input and output where the input to the controller is also
the part of the output from some suitable converters .A simple diagram illustrating the
working mechanism of PLCs is given

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In this section, the controller corresponds to the program in PLC.A sensor is a
converter that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read
by an observer or by a instrument. An actuator is a type of motor for moving or controlling a
mechanism or system. It is operated by a source of energy typically electric current,
hydraulic fluid pressure or pneumatic pressure and converts that energy into motion, It is like
a closed loop system where the feedback minimizes the error as the process proceeds .With
the help of PLC, different systems in the company can be monitored efficiently. The input
from different can be fed to the PLC controller and the whole system can be controlled.
Different products from different system has to be transferred from one place to another, for
this human workforce is need which may contaminate the product or may be mishandled a
small rotating circular conveyer belt can be employed which can solve this problem. Its
obviously going to add to the utility of the belts if the commodities are going to be weighed
while they are going to the conveyer belt. The huge computational power and speed recent
PCs their high level language programming interface and advanced IO interfaces, enhances
secondary memory, handling capabilities make them preferable.

Image

The weight to be measured by the load cell is dropped on to the moving conveyor belt with the help
of the hopper arrangement as shown. The weight to be measured is applied to the load cell. The load
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cell is a transducer that converts any physical or non-electrical quantity. The output of load cell is in
mill volts and needds to be amplified as this quantity is to be transmitted over long distance
attenuation. The amplifier used here is AMP-01FX. This amplifies signal acts as an input to an analog
to digital converter AD676. It is a multipurpose 16 bit parallel output analog to digital converter
which utilizes a switched capacitor/charge redistribution architecture to achieve a 100kbps
conversion rate (10 microseconds total conversion time). As parallel transfer is desired PCI is quiet
versatile and the present Pcs have PCI slots mounted on them. 8255 is a general purpose
programmable i/o device designed for the use with microprocessor system. The programmable port
for data transfer are provided by 8255, which needs no external logic to interface peripheral devices
or structures. But programmed by weighing software. Hence the PCI8255 add on card is used to read
the digital date by the computer and it can be read and processed by using a program in c.

Advantages over Existing system

The application for industrial processcontrol system are diverse, ranging from simple traffic control to complex
electrical power grids. From environment control systems to oil refinery process control. The intelligence of these
automated systems lies in their measurement and control units, implementing PLCs offers numerous performance
benefits, such as reduced hardware requirements, increased efficiencies and less waste. Modern PLCs are highly
customized solutions that can be tailored to individual control application while consuming less real state on factory
floor. As a built-in controller, PLC simplify installation because they use less cabinate space also visual display of many
PLC improve machine operation, interaction and increase production efficiency. For example, local displays coupled with
easy to use interfaces on PLCs can provide simple instruction for machine operators as well as a means for data entry to
support alarm monitoring management. Designed for easy maintenance and troubleshooting, repair are reduced to simply
replacing modular, plugin components. The likelyhood of faults and the time needed to fix these errors is significantly
reduced eliminating the need to rewire panels and devices.

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With the installation of the conveyor belt, higher capacity can be handled than any other form of conveyor at a
considerably lower cost per ton kilometer. Minimum labor is required for the operation and maintenance of belt conveyor
system. Mishandle of the the products can be reduced. The problem of weighing system can be avoided as it measures
the caret automatically and if any problem is seen the operator in control room can take the charges and mismatch in
weighing can be avoided. Also reduces the manpower thus contributing in corporation income.
Due to the application of PLC system, too many operators are not needed different systems can be monitored through
the computer and control. In some cases there might be a chance of manual handle. Thus it reduces the manpower and
the company can benefit in a long term goal thus reducing the cost of manufacture. Which can cause the increase in
demand.

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By the use of PLC and modern equipment the energy consumption of the industry can be reduced. Ti cradicates the use
of high power operating machines and controls the operation in efficient way. Efficient lighting, heating and cooling can
reduce energy loads and implementation of combined heat and power or process integration systems can improve
efficiency.

Conclusion and recomondation

We have performed the case study at ddc hetauda. We investigated all the process and mechanism implemented over
there currently. We observed that the process was a primitive and needs to be updated to compete with the
contemporary industries.
We observed the different systems and thought the monitoring of different systems requires much manpower and the
cost goes high. So we purposed PLC based systems where the system can be monitored and control by few operators.
Though the installation cost can go high but it is beneficial for long term goal. The concept of conveyor belt is also
presented by the help of which product can have a safer operation. The block diagram proposed above shows the
automatic carrying and weighing of the carets of packed milk, yogurt and ice cream products. Though the company is
quiet small to install conveyer belt, but if extends its corporation in future the concept of PLC based system can be
much helpful.

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