Academic year 2011/2012
Operations Management
Scharffen Berger Chocolate Case study
Process analysis
Assumptions
From the case we can see the following relations:
- 250kg of beans 185kg of nibs; This relation can be seen in the description of the act ivity Winnower, so we know that
1kg of beans 0,74kg of nibs
-
As stated in the description of the Conche activity: 1.400kg of semisweet chocolate contains 850kg of nibs, in other words, 1kg of semi sweet chocolate 850/1400=0,6071kg of nibs
1kg of nibs 0,46kg of chocolate paste; This one is explained in the
Melangeur activity (nibs are composed by 54% of cocoa butter and the rest used for the chocolate paste). Despite this, we assume that all the nibs are…show more content… b) What is the bottleneck of the process?
The bottleneck of the process is the Conche because it is th e activity with lowest capacity that influences the whole process capacity.
c) What is the capacity of the process?
The capacity of the process is 32.516,13kg of semi-sweet chocolate/month, because it is the capacity of the bottleneck: Conche.
2. Analysis of the possible acquisition of Ball Mill
a) How the analysis in 1 will change?
Acquiring the Ball Mill (which enters the production process in the second semester of
2005) enables the company to divide the Conching process in two different activities: the first one that is made by the already two existing machines – which are able to reduce the particles from 1.000 microns to 100 microns – and another made by the
Ball Mill – which will reduce from 100 microns to 25 microns. So now the Conching will only take 12 hrs for each machine to process 1.400kg of semi-sweet chocolate and the
Ball Mill will take 3 hours for each 1.400kg of semi-sweet chocolate. In the Ball Mill activity we assume that it is able to work 24 hrs as the other 2 machines. And we also assume that there are no inventories between the Conching activity and the Ball Mill.
So, given this:
Conching
1400kg of semi-sweet chocolate/12hrs per machine
1400/12=116,67kg of semi-sweet chocolate/hr per machine
116,67*24*2= 5600kg of semi-sweet chocolate/day
5600*30= 168000kg of semi-sweet
