South Dakota State University wanted a place to teach students about dairy food processing. The challenge was designing it to meet requirements for dairy production within the footprint of a college campus. We designed the plant mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems for sanitary, real-world operations. We also provided appropriate input to the lead architect and structural engineer on layouts and finishes as well as typical food plant structural systems. Standards met both university facility needs and those required for an actual operating dairy plant.
Typical production scale dairy plants might process from one to six million pounds of milk daily. This facility is only designed to process up to 1.5 million pounds of milk annually. To produce at that scale, we designed storage and materials handling for management on foot rather than with large equipment. We also considered LEED requirements and incorporated LEED design elements to achieve greater operational efficiency and sustainability.