National Cranberry
Case: National Cranberry Coop
Questions
1. What are the most critical problems facing National Cranberry that Mr. Schaeffer must address? What are some potential causes of these problems? What potential solutions do you suggest?
Problems and potential causes: 1. Overtime costs: the root cause of this issue depends on how effectively workers could be scheduled. Workers in this industry tend to have problems with absenteeism. A higher than expected absenteeism would translate to overtime pay for workers already in the plant. This will add a spike to the overtime costs. In 1970, approximately 35% of total man-hours were overtime labor. 2. Long wait time for unloading process fruit: the root cause of this issue depends on the throughput of the receiving plant’s operations, i.e. destoning, dechaffing, drying, milling, bulk loading, and bagging.
Solutions: 1. To address the issue with skyrocketing overtime costs, Mr. Schaeffer should try to understand what is causing workers to be absent more often than expected. Possible ways to reduce absenteeism include: talking to your employees about the problem; create a plant policy to encourage attendance; use a tracking tool (like a calendar or time sheet) to better understand trends in attendance. 2. To address the wait time issue, NCC will need to analyze the plant operations to pin-point the bottlenecks and find ways, e.g. redesign the plant, invest in resources, to reduce these bottlenecks.
2. Draw a process flow diagram for Receiving Plant #1. For each step in the process flow indicate:
Following are figures that illustrate the processes within RP1 (from A to F).
Figure [ 1 ]: Receiving Process
Figure [ 2 ]: Temporary Holding Process
Figure [ 3 ]: Cleaning & Drying Process
Figure [ 4 ]: Separation Process
Figure [ 5 ]: Bulking and Bagging Process
3. Recall the definition of a capacity bottleneck from Module 1. Identify the potential capacity bottleneck(s) in the
Questions
1. What are the most critical problems facing National Cranberry that Mr. Schaeffer must address? What are some potential causes of these problems? What potential solutions do you suggest?
Problems and potential causes: 1. Overtime costs: the root cause of this issue depends on how effectively workers could be scheduled. Workers in this industry tend to have problems with absenteeism. A higher than expected absenteeism would translate to overtime pay for workers already in the plant. This will add a spike to the overtime costs. In 1970, approximately 35% of total man-hours were overtime labor. 2. Long wait time for unloading process fruit: the root cause of this issue depends on the throughput of the receiving plant’s operations, i.e. destoning, dechaffing, drying, milling, bulk loading, and bagging.
Solutions: 1. To address the issue with skyrocketing overtime costs, Mr. Schaeffer should try to understand what is causing workers to be absent more often than expected. Possible ways to reduce absenteeism include: talking to your employees about the problem; create a plant policy to encourage attendance; use a tracking tool (like a calendar or time sheet) to better understand trends in attendance. 2. To address the wait time issue, NCC will need to analyze the plant operations to pin-point the bottlenecks and find ways, e.g. redesign the plant, invest in resources, to reduce these bottlenecks.
2. Draw a process flow diagram for Receiving Plant #1. For each step in the process flow indicate:
Following are figures that illustrate the processes within RP1 (from A to F).
Figure [ 1 ]: Receiving Process
Figure [ 2 ]: Temporary Holding Process
Figure [ 3 ]: Cleaning & Drying Process
Figure [ 4 ]: Separation Process
Figure [ 5 ]: Bulking and Bagging Process
3. Recall the definition of a capacity bottleneck from Module 1. Identify the potential capacity bottleneck(s) in the