A method for operating a milking arrangement during a milking process, comprising:
- providing a teat cup (12) of milking equipment (11) of the milking arrangement with an exchangeable expendable part (12b, 13a-b), the teat cup (12) comprising a rigid teat cup shell (12a) and the exchangeable expendable part (12b, 13a-b), the exchangeable expendable part (12b, 13a-b) including at least one of the group consisting of i) a teat cup liner connected to the teat cup shell, ii) a cartridge including a teat cup liner (12b) connected to the teat cup shell, iii) a milk tube (13a) connecting an interior of the teat cup liner to a milking vacuum, and iv) a vacuum tube (13b) connected to the teat cup shell, the exchangeable expendable part further comprising an identification tag (18a-c) comprising data that uniquely identifies at least one of the group consisting of i) a model of said exchangeable expendable part, and ii) a manufacturing date of said exchangeable expendable part,
- wherein the milking equipment further comprising a computer system (17) operatively connected to monitor or control the milking equipment;
- and a reader (19) that reads the data of the identification tag, the reader operatively connected to the computer system to forward the read data of the identification tag to the computer system;
- the reader (19) reading (22) the data of the identification tag of said exchangeable expendable part;
- the reader (19) forwarding (23) the read data of the identification tag of said exchangeable expendable part to the computer system;
- based on the read data of said exchangeable expendable part received from the reader, the computer system uniquely identifying at least one of the group consisting of i) the model of said exchangeable expendable part by the computer system retrieving the model of the exchangeable expendable part from a plurality of models of the exchangeable expendable part stored in a database (17e) of the computer, and ii) the manufacturing date of said exchangeable expendable part;
- and
- the computer system adapting the milking process to the identified model and age of the exchangeable expendable parts by
- i) during milking of the animal in the milking process, controlling milking parameters of the milking equipment including at least one of the group consisting of milking vacuum, pulsation vacuum, pulsation rate, and pulsation frequency based on the identified model of each exchangeable expendable part, or
- ii) during the milking of the animal in the milking process, controlling the milking parameters of the milking equipment including at least one of the group consisting of milking vacuum, pulsation vacuum, pulsation rate, and pulsation frequency based on the identified manufacturing date of each exchangeable expendable part.