D4Dairy project addressed the challenges of the stakeholders along the dairy value chain, in particular of the farmers and the economic partners contributing to this project. The overall goal of D4Dairy was the generation of added value for herd management as well as the improvement of animal health, animal welfare and product quality by creating a well- developed (data) network and by exploiting the opportunities offered by new (digital) technologies and analytical methods. The specific objectives of D4Dairy therefore were a) to capture the enormous amounts of diverse data (theoretically) available on the farm and from other partners along the milk chain; b) to aggregate these data into one central database, assess different data communication methods in compliance with legal requirements and develop a concept of interoperability; (c) to perform complex and advanced analyses in order to detect risk factors and identify early predictors of health problems using big data approaches, mid-infrared spectra, genetic and genomic studies, mycotoxin detection and information about the impact of housing climate on animal health and welfare; (d) to develop data-based strategies to reduce the use of antimicrobials and implement quality assurance programs and (e) to provide the information obtained from the analyses for decision support using newly developed complex and innovative tools that are easy to apply, operate in real- time in an automated fashion, and whose results are easy to interpret.