August 25, 2020 The University of Technology in Swinburne, Australia, says it has about a dozen Internet of Things (IoT) pilot projects underway, each of which aims to improve the quality of products manufactured through corporations, as well as make chains of origin and operations. more efficient. Projects come with sensor-based generation tests and the knowledge you can provide, as well as analytics, alerts, and other extrapolated data from that knowledge. Participating Australian corporations produce everything from metal to vegemite. This year, the university partnered with the German company Software AG, which supplies the software platform and integrates IoT responses to agriculture, production and other industries.
Recent implementations come with one through Bega Cheese, an agri-food company that uses the Swinburne generation and AG Software to track the quality of milk produced on one hundred dairy farms. The solution, tested in the university’s Internet of Things lab, is being implemented lately on those dairy farms in Victoria. Bega Cheese tests generation to stumble upon milk quality, when it is collected and when it is delivered to the company’s processing site. Cheese factory manufactures dairy products such as cheese, milk powder and packaged products, which it exports to 40 countries. It works with dairy suppliers made up of farmers from all over Australia, and adds up to one hundred in Victoria.
Corporate dairy products such as cheese, milk powder and packaged products.
Adel Salman by Bega Cheese
According to Adel Salman, general manager of the Bega Cheese source chain, the quality control of this milk and the knowledge of shipping is done historically manually. The company is looking for an automated way to ensure that milk is collected from farms and sent to its own sites to be treated in the most effective way, he said. In fact, Adds Salman, “the complete traceability and visibility of milk, from the farm to the production processing site, improves product declarations of provenance.”
Dimitrio Georgakopoulos of the Internet of Things Laboratory
The company also sought to minimize transport prices and the productivity and competitiveness of its home chain. “The availability, status and volume of milk are all key points influencing the development of milk harvesting plans on farms,” says Salman. “In addition, the relative protein and fat content of milk varies, and wisdom in advance gives the option of distributing milk in a way that maximizes its value.”
Swinburne University and Software AG began operating with Bega Cheese in November 2019. The solution they have developed since then are sensors in milk tanks that employ wireless transmission to a cloud-based server. The knowledge gathered allows live monitoring of conditions, explains Dimitrio Georgakopoulos, director of the Internet of Things laboratory. All milk tracking sensors are incorporated into a stainless metal box that is inserted into each milk tank. Each sensor captures knowledge such as the protein and fat point in milk, allowing the corporate to know the quality of the product and measure the amount of milk in the tank.
Knowledge is transmitted through NarrowBand Internet of Things (NB-IoT), a low-power long cellular network generation (LPWAN) through which sensors transmit garland data to a device that then transmits knowledge through cellular connectivity. The Software AG software platform, known as Cumulocity IoT, receives this data, analyzes milk quality and volume, and presents the knowledge to manufacturers and Bega Cheese. Quality knowledge can be used to determine the price of the product, while the volume of milk in the tank can automatically trigger the planning of the collection.
The formula allows Bega Cheese to quality its products.
Existing proximity, sound, and electrical sensors can identify when a pickup is performed. Sensors committed to this procedure are installed in the cargo domain and use proximity, electrical and sound measures to identify the arrival and exit of each of the tankers. They can also stumble when carrying out tank washing activities, providing greater visibility into the condition of each tank, for example, when wiped and in a position to fill up. According to Georgakopoulos, the solution uses ambient temperature and humidity sensors to monitor the environmental situations of each of the farms, and this knowledge can be compared to the volume and quality of the milk in the following days or weeks, to allow for greater production forecasts based on weather and weather situations.
With the knowledge gathered, Bega Cheese can visualize in real time the quantity, temperature and quality of your milk, as well as relevant forecasts throughout the source chain, from farms to the processing site, and can also monitor collection times. Milk transportation providers with the software can view the same data as Bega Cheese, receiving collection plan updates and alerts for collection occasions. In addition, Georgakopoulos reports, farmers obtain alerts similar to those of milk collection and collection occasions.
By offering the software platform for each application, says Georgakopoulos, Software AG allows Swinburne to focus on creating sensor-based IoT responses. Software AG responds to IoT and works with scholars and advertising customers. “We have a very close legacy of working with universities,” says Tony Drewitt, the company’s IoT director. “Research [often] becomes a reality,” he explains, “so we need these studies, and when they become advertising responses, we can become customers.”
Swinburne’s research team has been generating IoT responses since 2010. “At first,” says Georgakopoulos, “we were creating our own infrastructure,” but the university most recently specialized in knowledge analysis, so he turned to Software AG for knowledge. capture and control. Lately, other projects are being carried out with composite brands, such as aircraft portions and steel production. These projects on source chain efficiency, plant productivity and product quality.
In food processing, Bega Cheese tests IoT generation to determine the consistency of its yeast paste, the key element that makes up Vegemite, and optimize its performance. The solution consists of a variety of sensors to track product consistency as well as machine parameters. The IoT solution uses a refractometer, in addition to knowledge of existing sensors and logic controllers that can be programmed on machines.
Traditionally, says Georgakopoulos, the composition of yeast paste is tracked manually. If the proper consistency is not obtained, the product will be reprocessed. However, with the IoT solution, knowledge can be viewed in real time, and an automated “recommendation system” can adjust device settings to ensure optimal performance. By reducing the amount of reprocessing, Georgakopoulos says: “We expect a 20% increase in productivity.”
The Cumulocity IoT platform is independent of sensors and network paints, Drewitt reports, allowing you to collect knowledge of a variety of sensors through LoRa, LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi or NB-IoT. “It’s wonderful for us,” says georgakopoulos, “because it allows us to focus on inventing things and not putting much effort into reinventing some other IoT platform for sensor knowledge gathering.” While the software lives in the cloud, Drewitt adds, you can also paint on the user’s own network paints. “The connection of the sensors to the platform takes a few minutes,” he says, while Cumulocity is able to operate at 80%, in a position to use; The remaining 20%, he says, is made up of customization for a quick deployment.
Tony Drewitt of Software AG
Salman says it expects the productivity and competitiveness of the company’s milk source chain “with the need to collect and process milk just in time on a giant scale.” Such milk quality control can also contribute to the company’s expansion into higher-value dairy products, he adds, noting that IoT generation can simply increase the sustainability of Bega Cheese’s source chain by reducing milk waste and fuel consumption.
The two-and-a-half-year allowance has been underway for about six months to date, Salman reports. “We’re still in the early stages,” he says, “but we think the effects to date are promising.” From Swinburne’s perspective, the university hopes to continue offering IoT responses through its partnership with Software AG. “The purpose is to make the industry more effective and competitive,” says Georgakopoulos. “We seek to help our partners achieve this purpose.”