First DeLaval AMR™ commercial installation sold

DeLaval International announced today the first commercial installation of the DeLaval AMR™ the automated milking rotary presented in November 2010 at the EuroTier tradeshow in Hannover. “This is a very significant milestone for DeLaval. Farmers with herds of 300-800 cows have been waiting for a solution like this. The AMR™ is a paradigm shift in technology set to revolutionize high capacity automatic milking,” said DeLaval Vice President Business Area Capital Goods Andrew Turner.

The Dornauf family in Tasmania will be the first AMR™commercial dairy farmers. Today 3 generations – Ian and Jenny, Chris and Lynn, and Nick – run three dairy operations and milk over 1100 cows. A completely new site will be set up for the DeLaval AMR™. The Dornauf’s AMR™ will be built up during the next 2-3 years to a 500-600 head operation in a voluntary cow traffic system.

“We see this technology as being vital to the future of the dairy industry, and we are excited about being involved at the start of this revolution. We see this move to large scale automated milking as a key milestone in our business development,” said Chris Dornauf. “We invested in the AMR™ because we want to manage our farm in a way that allows us to focus on the cows’ performance rather than on the manual task of milking them. I think this is the system that will help me achieve that goal.”

The Dornauf’s pasture based systems are supplemented with silage and concentrate. The production level on their sites fluctuates between 520-620 kg milk solids per cow per lactation.

The DeLaval AMR™ was developed with three key customer benefits in mind; profitability, farm management and flexibility. The main components of the AMR^TM are teat preparation, attachment and teat-spray modules, two touch screens to operate the system, automatic cup backflush, automatic floor cleaning and safety systems. The first AMR™ systems will have up to 90 cow/hour capacity, depending on the number of robots installed. As many as five robots can be attached to the rotary.

“I would like to acknowledge the collaboration with Future Dairy Project in Australia that has resulted in the successful development of this significant technology,” Andrew Turner said.

The challenge to develop the AMR™ was to bring to market a flexible system that works equally well on all types of farming operations. Another goal was to offer a modular approach so dairy farmers can scale up; they can start with a lower level of automation and then increase as their business grows. “It’s a huge advantage,” Andrew Turner said. “Less capital is needed from the outset.”

DeLaval is testing the AMR™ on farms in Sweden and in Australia and plans further commercial releases in those two countries during 2011. It will be available in other selected markets in 2012.

Click here to download pictures of the Dornauf family and other DeLaval AMR™ graphic material

Click here to watch DeLaval AMR™ video and download DeLaval movie material