Every dairy facility runs on a foundation of standards. Not the food safety certificates on the wall, but the invisible engineering standards that determine how machines talk to each other, how recipes move from screen to tank, and whether a new production line will fit cleanly into everything that came before it. Most production managers know these standards exist. Far fewer know how to use them as a competitive tool. In this episode of the Food Tech Podcast, Lars Linnet, Product Director at Au2mate, makes a case that is both practical and urgent. The three core automation standards in dairy, ISA-88, S-95, and PackML, are not compliance exercises, but rather a shared language that determines whether your facility can scale, optimise, and integrate new suppliers without rebuilding from scratch every time. In this conversation, Lars breaks down what these standards actually cover, where facilities typically fall short, and how a pragmatic, project-by-project approach to compliance builds the kind of operational foundation that makes data-driven optimisation possible. In this Episode The three foundational automation standards every dairy production manager should know, and why ISA-88 is the most important starting pointThe real cost of custom, non-standard integration work, including the hidden overhead when new products need to be introduced years laterWhy large producers tend to handle this better than smaller ones, and what the tipping point looks like for growing facilitiesThe pragmatic approach: why a full gap analysis is rarely the right first step, and how to build compliance incrementallyWhy supplier agnosticism, the ability to choose between vendors without operational risk, is one of the most underrated benefits of standards compliance Chapters 00:00 Opening quote and episode framing 01:55 What the three core standards actually cover 04:10 Additional standards: food safety, machine safety, and more 04:44 Which standard a production manager should prioritise first 06:10 A real-world example: cheese line expansion and recipe integration 08:52 How widespread is standards compliance across the industry 10:06 The tipping point: when does non-compliance become a real problem 14:31 From compliance to competitive advantage: using standards proactively 15:49 The link between structured data, naming conventions, and AI readiness 17:10 What it actually looks like when data has no structure 18:33 The business case: what is at stake when optimisation is not possible 20:49 Starting right: building the model from the design phase 22:06 Do standards constrain innovation, or enable it 24:39 Who owns standards compliance in a dairy organisation 26:09 Three immediate actions for a production manager 28:40 How to pitch standards to operators, production managers, and senior leadership 32:28 Supplier agnosticism and the trust argument About Lars Linnet Lars Linnet is the Product Director at Au2mate, a specialist automation and MES provider serving the food and beverage industry. He has spent his career at the intersection of IT and OT in dairy production, helping facilities design and implement structured automation environments that meet the demands of modern data-driven operations. Lars brings a rare combination of hands-on engineering depth and strategic perspective, having worked on projects ranging from greenfield builds to complex multi-supplier integrations. In this episode, he speaks with characteristic directness about where the industry is doing well and where it consistently falls short. Production This podcast is brought to you by Au2mate. This podcast is produced by Montanus.
