NDDB and dairy cooperative recruitment · India · National Dairy Development Board; state cooperative milk federations
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersRunning a dairy company or plant: operations, supply chain, marketing, finance and people.
In the exams: ICAR AICE subject 35a Unit 8 (product development, test marketing); agribusiness sector electives (dairy); NDDB and dairy cooperative management recruitment
NDDB and dairy cooperative recruitment (India)
Practical management of procurement, chilling, plant operations, distribution and cooperative business: capacity utilisation, milk-shed and BMC economics, route planning, product costing and break-even, ratio analysis. Questions are written per vacancy and are applied rather than theoretical.
How our questions for NDDB and dairy cooperative recruitment spread across the units of Dairy Business Management & Marketing. Difficulty: 22 easy, 41 medium, 22 hard.
| Procurement and milk-shed management | 8 | |
| Inventory management of perishable products | 8 | |
| Distribution and route planning | 8 | |
| Dairy brand marketing and consumer research | 8 | |
| Costing and pricing of dairy products | 8 | |
| Human resource management in plants | 8 | |
| Industrial safety and labour law | 8 | |
| Corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting | 8 | |
| Organisation of dairy enterprises | 7 | |
| Production planning and plant capacity utilisation | 6 | |
| New product development: stage-gate process | 4 | |
| Financial statements and project appraisal | 4 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
Why does a dairy cooperative usually face a bigger seasonal surplus problem than a private dairy of the same size?
B. It normally accepts all the milk its members offer, so flush-season surplus falls on the plant
Assured acceptance of members' milk is a core service, so the plant must convert the flush surplus into balancing products. A private buyer can limit purchases to what it can sell. Cooperatives are not barred from making powder or butter, and members supply all year, only in smaller lean-season volumes.
Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) of a packing line is calculated as:
A. Availability x performance rate x quality rate
OEE multiplies the three losses: downtime, speed loss and rejects. Averaging the three overstates effectiveness; actual over design capacity is utilisation; good over total units is only the quality rate.
In the flush season a cooperative dairy converts surplus milk mainly into which products, to be used or sold during the lean season?
B. Skim milk powder and butter
Powder and butter (or ghee and butter oil) store for months and can be recombined into milk later; they are the classic balancing products. Toned milk, curd, paneer, yoghurt and flavoured milk have short shelf lives and cannot carry solids across seasons.
A bulk milk cooler has annual fixed costs of 120,000 and running costs of 0.30 per litre. It handles 1,000 litres a day all year. What is the chilling cost per litre?
C. 0.63
Fixed cost per litre = 120,000 / (1,000 x 365) = 0.33; total = 0.33 + 0.30 = 0.63. 0.33 omits the running cost; 0.30 omits the fixed cost; 120.30 divides the fixed cost by daily rather than annual litres.
A frozen starter culture is used at 2,400 units a year; ordering cost is 400 per order and holding cost is 4 per unit per year. The culture's shelf life is two months. What is the largest sensible order?
A. 400 units, set by shelf life
EOQ = sqrt(2 x 2,400 x 400 / 4) = 693 units, about 3.5 months' use, which exceeds the two-month shelf life. Two months' use is 2,400 / 12 x 2 = 400 units, so shelf life caps the order. A full year's stock would expire; one month's use is safe but not the largest sensible order.
In dairy distribution, empty crates and unsold product returned from outlets form:
A. A reverse flow that must be planned and costed
Crates must come back for reuse and returns must be counted, disposed of and charged under the trade terms; both use vehicle space and staff time. Who bears return cost depends on the agreement, and returned fresh product cannot be resold as fresh.
A raw milk collection route must reach the chilling centre within a time limit after milking. Compared with a product delivery route, which extra constraint does this add to route planning?
B. A maximum elapsed time from the first pickup to the cooler
Microbial quality depends on time to chilling, so collection routes have a maximum duration from first pickup. Retail outlet counts and early-morning windows are delivery-route constraints; routes commonly cover several villages.
A set yoghurt that gelled well in the pilot plant shows weak body when made in the factory. This is an example of a failure at:
A. Scale-up
Moving from pilot to full scale changes incubation, cooling rates and pump shear, which can alter gel structure. Idea generation and gate review come earlier; pricing does not affect texture.
In joint-product costing, whey from cheesemaking that has a small market value is usually:
A. Treated as a by-product credited at net realisable value
A by-product's net realisable value is commonly deducted from the main product's cost, rather than sharing joint cost. Charging it half the milk cost or cheese's price per kg overstates its value; it is not costless, it simply carries no allocated joint cost.
A plant records 4 lost-time injuries in 800,000 man-hours. What is the frequency rate per million man-hours?
A. 5.0
Frequency rate = 4 x 1,000,000 / 800,000 = 5.0. 1.0 is the OSHA-style rate on a 200,000-hour base; 0.5 and 50.0 misplace the decimal.
Ten here, 85 in the app. The Laisha app has every practice question we have written to NDDB and dairy cooperative recruitment in this subject, marked as you go, with timed papers, a jump-to-unanswered list and a certificate when you pass at 70 per cent.
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