In renovating a brownfield dairy facility, new owner Hood benefitted Haskell’s forward-thinking original design.

HP Hood (Hood), a leading dairy company, acquired a yogurt processing facility in Batavia, New York, to expand its production capabilities in the region. While the plant location was ideal, Hood was not in need of additional yogurt manufacturing. Instead, it needed a new facility for processing and packaging fluid milk products. Haskell was the perfect partner to make the brownfield conversion because our team designed and built the plant for its first owners.

In the plant’s original design, Haskell’s engineers utilized best-in-class standards and materials for a dairy facility. In addition, the plant layout was made to accommodate future expansion and included utility systems capable of handling significantly larger loads than the original facility required. Subsequently, Hood and Haskell evaluated the utilities and were able to accommodate the fluid dairy requirements with minimal utility additions.

Innovative technology and integrated equipment gave Hood a modern, cost-effective process system.

Initially, our process engineering team spent several months evaluating and testing various control system software products to ensure they would provide Hood with the most flexible, cost-effective and reliable process control system possible. This initial research enabled Haskell to save the client money by retaining some of the good control system software features and products from the original plant, while also improving efficiency by removing the pieces that had previously caused significant reliability and maintenance issues.

Once all the equipment was selected, the PLC code for the plant was rewritten from scratch to support a new, modern system concept. These technical advancements on the process side of the project helped provide Hood with the best value for its investment by minimizing system downtime, increasing production efficiencies and maintaining the high level of product and operator safety mandated within the dairy industry.

PointCloud scanning and Digital Twin technology drove the new packaging system design.

Laser scans were conducted via PointCloud survey to map the existing packaging equipment within the plant, which enabled Haskell’s engineers to determine which pieces from the original facility could still be utilized and what new equipment needed to be added. Our System Analytics team then created simulation and emulation models of what the new system in Batavia would look like. Having a digital twin of the completed packaging line prior to the completion of construction enabled Hood and Haskell to troubleshoot any issues on the packaging line ahead of time, minimizing time and money spent during startup and commissioning.

Project success was achieved with the new fluid dairy plant.

At the conclusion of this project, Haskell delivered a new, technologically advanced plant within the shell of an older facility. Despite a few challenges encountered, including the brutal winter weather of upstate New York, Haskell’s engineers, designers and facility experts successfully fulfilled our client’s objectives.