When the melamine-contaminated baby milk scandal broke out in China, public attention focused more on the product quality and safety of China’s diary industry than ever before.

        As one of the largest dairy producers in China, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co. Ltd. (Yili Group) sought to gain customers’ confidence again with reliable products. To do that, Yili Group introduced food safety management systems throughout its supply chain to Control everything from cow feed analysis, disease prevention, raw milk collectionCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, storage, delivery stages. Advanced control techniques were also applied in Yili’s factories and processes.
        Maximum safety
        The Zhaodong facility in Heilongjiang Provincewww.cechina.cn, is a large liquid milk production plant of Yili Group. Twenty-five dairy production lines are used in the Zhaodong facilityCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, where more than 850 tons of high-temperature sterilized milk and 150 tons of yogurt are produced each day. Industrial automation techniques have been implemented in each step of the process in the facilityCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, from milk collectingCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, standardizing, and filling, to packaging operations. Using this automated equipment, managers and engineers at Zhaodong facility hope to answer the following questions to meet customer safety requirements:
        •How to visualize控制工程网版权所有, analyze, and manage the production process;
        •How to trace products from collection to distribution; and
        •How to re-track products and identify the shift responsible when a milk problem occurs?
        GE Fanuc’s Proficy Real-Time Information Portal was installed at the Zhaodong facility as the plant’s milk tracking and counter