GEA’s remote team provides outstanding support by running KMF’s plant remotely
The Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) was able to shore up its operations with the timely help from GEA and save thousands of litres of fresh milk. The milk became surplus as local movement of goods became suspended in the month of April due to countrywide lockdown.
The solution to save the milk by converting it to milk powder was brought to life by the excellent cooperation between KMF and GEA. Though KMF’s new Nandini Hi-Tech Mega Powder Plant in Ramanagara, Karnataka, could have processed the skimmed milk further it was in the middle of commissioning and not fully operational when the lockdown came into force.
Since GEA had already completed trials earlier in March because of which the plant had become partially operational, KMF asked for GEA’s support in running the plant for converting the milk to milk powder. Six GEA engineers provided support from their location while another GEA team consisting of process and automation engineers in Vadodara charted a plan to run the plant remotely from their home computers.
The combined team of KMF and GEA thereby converted 90,000 liters of skimmed milk into milk powder initially followed by 200,000 liters of milk over the next few days.