Dairy processors

Dairy processors receive a daily raw milk supply that may not match supply forecasts. They must balance the forecasted supply with raw materials received and create an optimal product mix, such as milk products, cream or milk powder.

Everyday milk and yogurt volumes stay steady, but categories like ice cream swing hard with weather and promotions, and new product launches carry no sales history to forecast from.

Mixing, pasteurizing, incubating, and blending each tie up a tank for one product at a time. Get the sequencing wrong, or miss a quality control hold, and a few days of overproduction turns into spoiled, short-shelf-life stock.

Demand, purchasing, production, and distribution too often run on separate plans and spreadsheets. Without one demand forecast feeding supply decisions directly, plans drift out of sync and gaps between planning and execution compound. Without scenario planning, teams can’t test how a change in milk supply or demand ripples through the plan before they act.

Balance incoming raw milk against demand using reverse BOM and recipe optimization, so the same milk can flow into milk, cream, or powder, including co-products like whey, depending on which mix best meets business targets.

One plan accounts for tank occupancy, cleaning and reset time, and shelf-life risk together. Production stays correctly sequenced, and short-dated stock gets flagged before a quality control hold or a missed changeover turns it into a write-off.

One shared plan carries the demand forecast into purchasing, production, and distribution automatically, so every team works from the same numbers instead of reconciling separate spreadsheets. Flexible scenario planning lets planners test the impact of changes on that one plan before they commit.

ERP systems execute plans, but fixed logic can’t decide what each day’s milk should become or how to sequence tanks around shelf life. RELEX adds the optimization layer that turns ERP execution into the most profitable mix.