Bega says cheese to IoT sensors for dairy supply chain

Software AG has announced that it will provide its Cumulocity IoT solution to Bega Cheese to launch a new IoT service linking the company’s farmer suppliers, milk transport and storage, and processing facilities. Software AG will provide IoT solutions to Bega Cheese to provide real-time data on milk production at farmer suppliers, including volumes, temperature, quality composition and transport conditions. The IoT solutions will help Bega gain efficiencies in pickup and delivery frequency to reduce costs and improve traceability.

Adel Salman, GM Supply Chain at Bega Cheese, stated that the company knew that IoT could be an excellent solution, especially with the use of real-time data for inbound and outbound activities in the company’s supply chain.

“What we didn’t have was experience in setting up IoT projects, so we started looking around for a partner that could provide us with IoT expertise, resources, industry contacts and help with government backing,” Salman said.

Salman described Swinburne University of Technology, with its Internet of Things Lab and Industry 4.0 initiatives, and partnership with Software AG, as the perfect collaborator for Bega.

“Swinburne University listened to what we needed to achieve and together with Software AG developed an IoT strategy with a set of solutions that met our needs. The university has also been instrumental in helping us to successfully apply for a research grant from the federal government’s Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P),” Salman said.

The scope of the project will include a novel low-cost milk quality sensor enabled for IoT, an IoT ‘live’ Supply Chain Monitoring system for continuous real-time monitoring of milk supply quantity and quality, farm conditions affecting milk production, and milk pickup events across the supply chain.

Tony Drewitt, Head of IoT ANZ, Software AG, said the company is excited to have this opportunity to work with Bega Cheese. “With Cumulocity, Bega Cheese will have real-time data and insights which will allow it to enhance its supply chain productivity and competitiveness with just-in-time milk pickup and processing requirements on a large scale,” Drewitt said.

Software AG will also provide a Dynamic Pickup Scheduling and Monitoring tool that utilises sensor data reporting milk supply change events to automatically maintain pickup schedules and pickup events. The project also includes a predictive machine learning-based highly accurate forecasting tool for milk quality and quantity that exploits live and long-term historical data from sensors across the supply chain, and a Farmer App that provides milk forecasting together with milk quality and pickup alerts. Swinburne University will also develop and build unique new IoT sensors specifically for Bega Cheese.

“We're excited to see the benefits that IoT can bring to our company. By working with Swinburne University and Software AG, we hope to be able to increase our growth across higher-value premium products, thus enhancing the competitiveness for both Bega and our suppliers,” Salman said.

Bega also aims to increase its supply chain sustainability by reducing milk wastage and fuel consumption of its milk transport partners. The project is expected to run for 12 to 18 months.

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