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DairyChem Laboratories Inc. has been in the business of manufacturing natural dairy flavors for over 75 years. Headquartered in the heartland of America, our origins date back to our founder Dr. Leon Chumlea who developed a natural flavor for butter manufacturers. Dr. Chumlea cultured milk with lactic cultures to produce unique flavor components that he extracted from the milk and then purified using steam distillation. Today, DairyChem continues to develop and produce natural dairy flavors in our modern manufacturing plant utilizing fermentation and our steam distillation process in addition to innovative new technologies including natural enzyme modification of milk, butter, and cheese. Our customer base has grown to include global food, nutritional, confectionary and beverage manufactures as well as traditional butter manufactures and dairy companies. Our products are sold and distributed throughout the world.

DairyChem uses fresh dairy ingredients and unique combinations of food processing technologies to manufacture its natural dairy flavors.

Situation 

In recent years, DairyChem has experienced explosive growth in one of our product lines. Historically, when the company needed to add equipment or storage, there was available space to add it.  However, as the space in the facility became sparse, DairyChem needed to develop a growth plan which would utilize their space as efficiently as possible. The first step in that plan was to develop a layout of the existing building, with the equipment and storage presented to scale.

Solution  

For this project, Purdue MEP was tasked with providing a layout of the DairyChem building in a CAD format. Out of all the requests for this project, the most important was that the CAD drawing was completed to scale. The Purdue team went a step further and provided a 3D printed model of the building to scale, and provided separate pieces for the model which represented scaled down versions of the existing equipment. These were especially useful when it came to future planning. These models gave the company the opportunity to conceptually move production lines to determine the most efficient use of the limited space.

Results

As previously mentioned, DairyChem received not only a CAD drawing of the facility, but also a 3D printed model as well. While these models will not likely contribute to a direct financial benefit in a measurable way, the benefits of having these tools during planned expansions will be invaluable. Having the ability to physically manipulate existing equipment in the facility to determine the best location for it will be useful. Moreover, the ubiquity of 3D printers will allow the company to 3D print possible new equipment to scale. DairyChem can then add it to the model facility, making it substantially easier than waiting for the new equipment to arrive and then trying to determine where it could fit.

“This experience with the Purdue MEP program was a very positive one. The project participants were engaged and asked pointed questions. The outcome of the project produced tools that will be invaluable for our future growth. Moreover, the value of this project significantly exceeded the amount budgeted for it. This was a great experience and I have already mentioned this program to several of my peers in the manufacturing industry.”

Kyle Hunt, Vice President of Production, DairyChem Laboratories, Inc.