Watching parlor performance

A monitoring system tracks three critical functions in a milking parlor to ensure early detection – and correction – of problems

By Danielle Thon and Jack van Almelo

•     Herd production. Like other parlor monitoring systems, Parlor Watch tracks production changes for each group of cows every milking. If one group’s production begins to decrease, the monitoring system alerts the herd manager immediately so steps can be taken to bring production back on track.
      “It was hard for us to justify the cost of individual milk weights,” Church says. “With Parlor Watch, it’s a minimal investment to get us part way to individual milk weights.” 
     After the each milking of each day, Church sees a report on the total milk per group, milk per hour and milk per cow in each group. Parlor Watch imports the cow number from Dairy Comp. 
       The system also shows the milk deviation by group. After each milking, the printed report will immediately indicate whether a group’s production is up or down relative to its own rolling average for that milking. Ration changes can be tracked the first milking after the change for just one group.
      “Since we know how much each group makes, we can make something like a ration change to one group and see how it performs before changing 100% of them,” Church says.
•     Milking system cleaning. The value of any monitoring lies in its ability to detect malfunctions early. That’s the first step to minimizing losses. 
      Parlor Watch records the duration and temperature of each of the milking system’s cleaning cycles. The report makes it easy to identify water that is not hot enough or a cycle that is not long enough before the problem threatens milk quality and the dairies’ milk premiums.
      The minimum and maximum temperatures indicate the first time the plate cooler was not engaged during milking or disengaged for a wash. Total Flow tracks the total pounds of water that circulates through the parlor for the rinse. 
      The Wash Up report, shown here, is divided into three phases: rinse, wash and acid.
      “We use Parlor Watch to ensure that the system is running the right amount of time and that the temperature is right,” Church says. “Our hot water heater wasn’t working, and we caught it in a couple hours.
     “If it can eventually be tied into the bulk tank, that will be useful.”
•     Milking routine. Parlor Watch creates a record of the milking staff’s performance for each milking by tracking the total time to milk each group, using start and stop times. Parlor Watch also reports the interval between finishing one group and starting the next (Pen Gap) and the maximum temperature (Max Temp) the milk reached as it exited the plate cooler. 
      The Pen Dev column shows the pounds of milk per cow variation from the rolling average for this group of animals, this milking. 
      “The technology gives the milking staff a quantitative number to see how much they’re making and if they’re on time for milking,” Church says. “They take more ownership of the milk they’re making “
      Church uses graphs of milk production during milker meetings or for performance reviews.
  

• Rinse
  A typical parlor will rinse directly to the drain with a minimum temperature of 110 degrees and a maximum temperature of 130 degrees. The system installer will specify the volume for the rinse.
• Wash
  A good wash will start at about 165 degrees and discharge no lower than 120 degrees after circulating between 10 to 15 minutes. 
• Acid
  The acid phase will normally run 5 to 6 minutes and have a minimum temperature of 110 degrees. 

“Parlor Watch is just one more monitoring tool,” says Bob Church, dairy manager of Patterson Dairy.