Waikato Milking Systems began life as a division of Alex Harvey Industries’ Plastics Moulding Company in New Zealand, in 1967.

The company was a leader in plastic moulding technologies and developed innovative vacuum regulators as well as the Waikato Milk Meter, which ultimately became the company’s namesake.

The successful foray into agriculture was a departure from the company’s core purpose and it was not until 1988 when Carter Holt Harvey acquired the business, that an Agricultural Division was established. Primary sector reform in the mid-1980s ended Government subsidies and regulation. F

armers looked to innovative companies developing new technology to help them improve production and profitability. Carter Holt Harvey's Agricultural Division was ahead of the game having spent some years working with the country’s leading scientists at the Ruakura Research Centre and, with its newly expanded R&D team, began releasing a range of innovative products which improved and increased dairy milking efficiency. One of the first products to receive international acclaim was the Ruakura Milk Harvester.

The innovation was a response to farmer concern at milk frothing and flooding in spring when cows were at peak production. The Milk Harvester separated air and milk in the claw and milk line, the first of its kind. But its widespread commercial adoption was limited because premium milk needed to be transported and processed in facilities separate to ‘standard’ milk. This incurred a significant cost which milk processors were not, at that time, prepared to accept but the Milk Harvester put the company on the map. It became known as an organisation which thought outside the box, which was in-tune with farmers and able to design and manufacture durable, practical, innovative, easy to use and cost-effective technologies for the dairy industry.

The company extended its range of dairy components and began to specialise in the design and production of rotary and loopline milking systems. Waikato Milking Systems was launched in 1992 and, four years later, it was acquired by American company, DEC International Inc, which subsequently filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001. A group of the New Zealand management team launched a buyout of the company - each member putting everything they owned ‘on the line’ to bring the company back into New Zealand ownership. In the same year, the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001 was passed.

It liberalised exports by merging the sole marketer of New Zealand’s dairy products, NZ Dairy Board, with the two largest dairy processor cooperatives, NZ Dairy Group and Kiwi Co-operative, to form Fonterra. The goal of the new Act was to promote competition and facilitate the operation of a fair market. In 2014, an ownership buyout of Waikato Milking Systems saw the company transfer to three institutional investors – Tainui Group Holdings, Ngai Tahu Capital and Pioneer Capital.

This is the company's current ownership model. Today, Waikato Milking Systems is one of the leading designers and manufacturers of rotary milking systems and dairy technology in the world – a reputation built around the DNA and culture evident in the small R&D team of AHI’s Plastic Products’ Agricultural Division 50 years ago.