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How a Dairy Plant Can Stop Overpaying for Milk Collection: Milk Tanker Route Optimization
Every dairy plant that buys raw milk from dozens of suppliers faces the same challenge: how to visit them all and collect the milk with the fewest kilometres, without mixing fat grades in one tank, and still get the trucks back to the depot before the shift ends. Usually a dispatcher does this by hand, in Excel, by eye and by trial and error. The result: extra kilometres, idle trucks, planning mistakes and constant calls to drivers to clarify the route.
CourierCloud automates exactly this job: collecting raw milk from many suppliers. In logistics this is called a milk run, and the term comes from the very practice of regularly visiting dairy farms to pick up milk.
What Makes Manual Planning So Hard
Dairy plants have their own constraints that make this harder than regular delivery
Milk of Different Fat Grades Can't Be Mixed
So simply filling each tank to the brim doesn’t work. You need to plan precisely which supplier ships which fat grade, and into which truck.
Total Volumes Have to Match
The amount of milk your branches need is exactly the amount you must collect from suppliers. A miscalculation means either a short delivery or a truck running half empty.
Everyone Works Different Hours
Branches, suppliers and drivers each have their own hours and shifts. The route has to respect all of these constraints at once.
Trucks Must Be Back at the Depot on Time
Not “sometime after unloading”, but strictly before the driver’s shift ends.
Keeping all of these constraints in your head for a dozen milk tankers and dozens of suppliers is close to impossible. The result: extra kilometres, driver overtime and a dispatcher who has to check everything by hand.
How CourierCloud Solves It
We built a dedicated algorithm for the dairy industry on top of our routing platform. It is simple for the operator and sophisticated under the hood.
One-time setup (edit whenever you need to)
Plant Branches
Addresses, names and opening hours
Tankers
Tank numbers and capacities
Depots
Coordinates where vehicles start their routes
Suppliers
Names, addresses and opening hours
Daily input (manual entry or Excel import):
Which trucks are working today and which are idle
How much milk, and of which fat grade, each branch needs
How much milk, and of which fat grade, each supplier can ship today
Then the system builds a route that, all at once:
1
Minimizes the total distance driven by all tankers
2
Collects all the milk from every supplier, with nothing left behind
3
Delivers exactly what each branch needs
4
Never mixes milk from different suppliers or of different fat grades
5
Fits within branch, supplier and driver working hours
6
Guarantees every truck is back at the depot before the shift ends
Your dispatcher no longer has to piece it all together in a spreadsheet. They upload the input data, and within minutes the system returns an optimal, ready-to-run route for the day.
What It Means for Your Plant in Practice
Less fuel and vehicle wear
by minimizing total distance, not by driving the route "the way we always have"
Fewer planning hours for your dispatcher
instead of several hours of building routes by hand in Excel every day
Less driver overtime
routes are built from the start to fit within the shift
Fewer errors and complaints
no mixed fat grades, no volume gaps, and every branch gets exactly what it ordered
Flexible when plans change
if a supplier's volume or a branch's daily demand changes, the route is recalculated from scratch, with no manual rework
Who It's For
The solution is designed for dairy plants and processors that collect raw milk from many suppliers every day with their own tanker fleet, and distribute finished products to branches or retail outlets. The more suppliers and branches a plant has, the bigger the savings from automated routing compared with manual planning.
Milk Tankers: Collect from Every Supplier on One Optimal Route
For dairy plants and processors, CourierCloud plans raw milk collection so every tanker visits its suppliers with the fewest kilometres, never mixes milk of different fat grades and is guaranteed to be back at the depot before the shift ends.
Tracks tank capacity and milk fat grade for every supplier
Respects branch, supplier and driver working hours
Automatic assignment: who goes where, and in what order
Daily data import from Excel