April 16, 2012 Problem Statement: Hugo Schaeffer, vice president of the National Cranberry Cooperative and shareholders are concern with the overtime cost and idle time truckers had to spend waiting for the process fruit
Analysis
We know that the operation for process fruit consist of different stages.1) Receiving 2)Temporary holding 3) destoning, dechaffing and drying 4) milling 5) bulking and bagging. in order to see where the problem is we have to analyze the process see the capacity at every step and then we can see the constrains that is "anything that limits the system from achieving higher performance versus its goal" The goal being to make money now and in the future. Constrains could be also defined as a step that limits throughput
1. Receiving In the receiving part there are 5 number of Kiwanee dumpers, the average weight deliver are 75 bbls. We also know that it usually takes 5 to 10 minutes for the trucks to load berries to the Kiwanee dumpers. Which gives us an average of 7.5 minutes. so we multiply the (5X75) the total weight. Then the result we multiply by (60/75) the average time per hour and the total gives us the dumping capacity per hour that is 3000 bbls per hour
2. Temporary Holding After the berries are moved to the conveyers, each conveyors moves them to other conveyers to the temporary holding bins.
Bins that can only hold dry berries 1-16 can hold 250 bbl. Bins that can hold dry and wet berries 17-24 can hold up to 250 bbls. and bins that can hold wet berries, bins 25-27can hold up to 400 bbls.
Bins total capacity 1-16 (dry) 250x16= 4000 bbls.
Bins 17-24 (Mixed) 250x8= 2000 bbls.
Bins 25-27( wet) 400x3= 1200 bbls.
3. Destoning, Dechaffing and drying There were three dechaffing units and each of these units can process up to 1,500 bbls per hour. The total capacity for dechaffing is 4500 bbls per hour.
Then after dechaffing the berries are taken to 3 drying units the ones that were bulk were dry at 200 bbls per hour. that is 600 bbls per hour. and the ones that were to be bagged were dry at 150 bbls per hour. that is 450 bbls per hour
With the berries that were dry were going to one of the 3 destoning units and could process up to 1,500 bblsper hour before going to dechaffing units. the total capacity for destoning was 4500 bbls per hour and separators capacity was 1200 bbls per hour.
4. Milling After the destoning, dechaffing and drying, the berries were transported to three large takeaway conveyors which moved the berries jumbo separators that identified 3 classes of berries, first quality, potential second quality berries, and unacceptable berries. The 3 separator line could process 450 bbls per hour. The total separator capacity is 1200 bbls per hour.
5. Bulking and Bagging Berries are transported from the separator building to the shipping building, then they are moved to any one of the four bagging stations, nay of the four bulk bin stations, or any of the two bulk truck stations.
A maximum of 8,000 bbls coulb be bagged in 12 hours.So the total capacity of per hour is 667 bbls per hour. In the other hand bulk berries could be filled at a rate of 200bbls per hour at each of the four bulk station. The total bin loading capacity would be 800 bbls per hour. The truck loading has two stations that each are capable of loading 1000 bbls per hour, then the total capacity bulk truck loading would be 200 bbls per hour. We can see that there is a bottleneck, a place in the production process where production slows down because of a slow insufficient number of machines. We can see that the bottleneck is caused by the low capacity of the dryers that varies between 450 to 600 bbls per hour depending if the wet berries are to be bagged or bulk frozen. Another bottleneck is in the separator capacity that could be from 600 bbls to 1200 bbls per hour depending if
