Résumé
Objetivou-se, neste artigo, estimar os custos envolvidos no processo de resfriamento do leite cru, tipo B, após a implantação da Instrução Normativa 51 e a verificação das possíveis fontes de economias de escala nesse processo. A partir dos conceitos da engenharia econômica calculou-se o custo uniforme líquido equivalente de investimento do processo de resfriamento do leite, que somado ao custo operacional, resultou no custo uniforme líquido total por litro de leite. Concluiu-se que existe forte tendência à economia de escala nessa atividade devido aos retornos crescentes no custo de investimento e operacional, conforme aumenta-se a capacidade dos tanques de resfriamento.
This article aims to estimate the costs involved in the milk cooling process after the Normative Instruction 51 was issued and it also aims to verify the sources of economies scale. Using the concepts of the economical engineering, the uniform net costs of the investment in the milk cooling process were calculated. They were added to the operational cost and it resulted in the total uniform net cost per unit. It was concluded that there is a strong tendency to economies scale in the milk cooling process as a consequence of the growing returns in the investment and operational costs as the milk cooling tank capacity increases.