Patent ID: 8286584

Claim:
A method for improving the throughput of milking animals being milked in a rotary milking system ( 1 ) comprising a rotary platform ( 3 ), which milking animals ( 7 ) enter and leave in a sequential order in order to be milked, comprising the steps of: presenting a plurality of milking animals to the rotary milking system, the plural milking animals being comprised of different groups of milking animals, each group of milking animals having a different expected time required for performing milking on the rotary platform; after presenting the plurality of milking animals to the rotary milking system, dividing the plurality of milking animals into i) a first group of milking animals to be guided first to the rotary platform for milking, and ii) remaining milking animals to be guided to a waiting area for milking after the first group of milking animals have been milked, wherein said dividing step comprises, for each milking animal of the plurality of milking animals, i) retrieving a measure indicative of the expected time required for performing milking on the rotary platform, ii) for milking animals having retrieved measures indicating the first group of milking animals, guiding the milking animals of the first group to the rotary platform for milking, and iii) for the remaining milking animals having retrieved measures indicating a remaining group other than the first group of milking animals, guiding the remaining milking animals of the remaining group into the waiting area; and subsequent to milking the first group of milking animals, guiding the remaining milking animals of the remaining group from the waiting area to the rotary platform for milking.