Objective Measurement Enabling Systems
Overview
The Objective Measurement (OM) programme represents a significant investment in advanced technologies and devices designed to accurately describe, measure, or estimate key performance and value traits at multiple points across the red meat supply chain. These traits include lean meat yield (LMY), eating quality, and animal health indicators.
To fully realise the benefits of these technological advancements, it is essential to complement them with robust enabling systems. These systems provide the foundation for consistent measurement, data integrity, and industry-wide adoption. Key enabling components include:
- Calibration frameworks to ensure measurement accuracy and consistency across devices and environments.
- Development of digital data and measurement standards to support interoperability and transparency.
- Enhancement of meat industry language criteria to align with emerging technologies and market requirements.
- Validation and integration of support systems into early adopters’ business processes, including data feedback loops, producer and seedstock extension programmes, and decision-support tools.
Core Activities
The enabling systems underpinning OM technology adoption focus on improving supply chain efficiency and value capture. Core activities include:
- Advancement of AUS-MEAT language and device accreditation standards to ensure credibility and facilitate widespread adoption of OM technologies.
- Development of supply chain decision-support tools and calculators to assist stakeholders in optimising operational and financial outcomes.
- Creation of optimiser and MeatLogic tools enabling processors to model boning room scheduling for maximum yield and profitability.
- Provision of Excel-based business case models to help processors evaluate the return on investment and value proposition of specific OM technologies.
- Integration of feedback systems with MyFeedback to deliver actionable insights to producers and brand owners, driving continuous improvement.
- Implementation of end-to-end carcase traceability and tracking systems to enhance transparency and enable detailed feedback throughout the supply chain.
Benefits to industry
Investments in enabling systems are critical to unlocking the full potential of OM technologies. These benefits include:
- Enhanced Value Capture: By linking objective measurements to pricing and allocation decisions, processors can optimise cut-to-carcase allocation, maximising overall carcase value.
- Improved On-Farm Decision Making: Feedback systems provide producers with accurate, timely data on animal performance, supporting better genetic selection, feeding strategies, and production planning.
- Operational Efficiency: Decision-support software simplifies complex processing decisions, reducing waste and improving throughput.
- Supply Chain Transparency: Integrated traceability systems strengthen trust and compliance, supporting brand integrity and market access.
- Industry-Wide Standardisation: Consistent measurement and language standards enable interoperability, reducing friction and accelerating adoption across the sector.
Ultimately, these investments position the Australian red meat industry to achieve greater productivity, profitability, and global competitiveness, while supporting sustainability and consumer confidence.
Projects
Project Code: P.PSH.1398
Objective: This project will develop a feedback system to enable analysis and visualisation of carcase trait and compliance data and allow it to be shared with cattle suppliers. The project will involve building an interactive digital platform for Greenham suppliers with analytical capacity enabling visualisation of compliance outcomes as provided through and extensive producer consultation and evaluation. Specifically, the project will evaluate the integration of current grading and disease and defect compliance data into Greenham’s workflows and business data management systems, including feedback to producers. The feedback system will be designed to integrate new compliance data, including objective measurement of carcase and live animal compliance that is currently being evaluated. This project’s primary objective is to provide the meaningful supply chain feedback that will enable producers to identify opportunities for improvement that will have the greatest impact on farm profitability. This will drive producer engagement with brand specifications to improve genetic gain and on-farm profitability. General learnings from this project will be used to inform producer extension activities.
Date published: In Progress
Project Code: P.PSH.1581
Objective: This project will design and develop a business system solution to use data and AI to optimise and create efficiencies in the supply chain, particularly focusing on primary production, enabling compliance data feedback to producers. A full end to end real-time data capture, analytics and visualisation system will be implemented and validated with a pilot beef supply chain to create value through enhanced plant efficiencies, reduced waste and improved yields. The pilot will involve providing compliance data to producers for what carcase characteristics processors require to meet their customers’ demands. The outcome will be a case study and business case, including guidelines of how a beef supply chain implemented a full end-to-end data tracking management system from livestock to carcase monitoring to enable pre-chiller sortation and allocation in saleable product markets to optimise value and returns. If successful, future phases are proposed to enhance the real-time decision capabilities to incorporating objective measurement and other data enabling systems to enhance compatibility of the solution for wider supply chain and marketplace adoption.
Date published: In Progress
Project Code: P.PSH.1416
Objective: This project aims to develop and evaluate processes to optimised carcase tracking and sortation for early adoption of OM technologies in sheepmeat processing. A full carcase identification and tracking system will be implemented and validated from livestock into processing whereby multiple objective measurement technologies integrated in the plant can be linked to data capture throughout all areas of process. The outcome will be a case study including guidelines of how a sheepmeat processor can implement a full end to end tracking system from livestock to carcase monitoring using OM data to enable pre-chiller sortation and allocation in saleable product markets to optimise value and returns.
Date published: 29 January 2024
Project Code: P.PSH.1553
Objective: The overall objective of the project is to develop and evaluate processes to optimise carcase sortation for early adoption of OM technologies in sheepmeat processing. A full carcase identification and tracking system will be implemented and validated from livestock into processing whereby objective measurement technologies can be integrated in the plant and linked to data capture throughout all areas of the process. It is aimed that this will provide more accurate and consistent supply chain feedback, thereby driving producer engagement with brand specifications and improve genetic gain.
Date published: In Progress
Project Code: PP.PSH.1592
Objective: This project will facilitate value-based grading of lamb carcasses. To do this, an innovative verification tool and backup system to the existing main scale operations is required. The integration of these technologies aims to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of carcass grading processes, ultimately benefiting producers and stakeholders in the livestock industry, meat sales, and processing industry to get the best value from the carcase by creating a high-end product.
Date published: In Progress
Project Code: P.PSH.1593
Objective: This project will develop and evaluate processes to optimise carcase sortation for early adoption of objective measurement technologies in sheepmeat processing. A full carcase identification and tracking system will be implemented and validated from livestock into processing whereby multiple objective measurement technologies integrated in the plant can be linked to data capture throughout all areas of process. The outcome will be a case study including guidelines of how a sheepmeat processor implemented a full end-to-end tracking system from livestock to carcase monitoring using objective measurement data to enable pre-chiller sortation and allocation in saleable product markets to optimise value and returns.
Date published: In Progress
Project Code: P.PSH.1611
Objective: This project aims to develop the decision support systems on a modular basis on a scalable and supportable platform to enable capturing value from existing information sources objective measurement of carcase traits, and animal disease and defect information in lamb and beef processing. The development will leverage on the Meat Logic and Carcase Optimisation business management systems developed as part of ALMTech I and II, and will expand its capability accuracy and repeatability in yield tracking and management, specifically with a focus on developing enhanced functionality on tracking individual carcase components and their yields into cartons. A supply chain pilot will enable the demonstration of the potential of decision support tools (carcase optimisation and production planning – Meat Logic) to facilitate information for improving supply chain efficiencies and profitability. The expected outcome will be to provide learnings that can be incorporated into the wider red meat industry.
Date published: In Progress
Project Code: P.PSH.1643
Objective: This project proposes to develop and evaluate the MEQ Track as a traceability enhancement tool for carcase tracking across the kill floor. The purpose is to validate MEQ Track’s ability to maintain correct carcass identification at the probe station by combining continuous spatial tracking and RFID correlation, ensuring that each MEQ Probe measurement is assigned to the correct carcass identifier/RFID under commercial operating conditions.
Date published: In Progress
Project Code: P.PSH.1647
Objective: This project will develop and evaluate a novel carcase tracking system in sheepmeat processing. Specifically, a visual etched hook and camera reader system will be implemented for improved accuracy, robustness, efficiency and cost effectiveness. This carcase identification and tracking system will be implemented and validated from livestock into processing whereby multiple objective measurement technologies integrated in the plant can be linked to data capture throughout all areas of processing.
Date published: In Progress
