National Cranberry Cooperative free essay sample

A potential cause is the lack of dryers and the lack of berry appropriate holding bins, i. e. ot enough wet or dry berry holding bins – these causes are inferred from Mel O’Brien’s comments on page one of the case. NCC invested in increasing capacity but not hire adequate full time labor to handle the incremental capacity (hence higher overtime). Not enough storage space at RP1 or processing capacity to move out older stock (hence the long wait times to unload). 2. Average time to  back a truck onto  a dumper is  5-10 minutes, so take 7. 5 minutes. 60 minutes / 7. 5  minutes = 8  trucks  per  hour. dumpers  * 75  barrels  per hour = 375 barrels per hour. Dumper capacity  = 9 * 375 = 3,000  barrels  per hour. Holding bins capacity for dry berries = 16 bins for dry berries * 250 barrels per bin = 4,000  barrels per hour. Holding bins capacity for wet berries = 3 bins for wet berries * 400 barrels per bin + 8 bins  for both dry and wet berries * 250 barrels per bin = 3,200 barrels per hour (assuming these bins are used for wet berries). We will write a custom essay sample on National Cranberry Cooperative or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Destoning = 3 units * 1500 barrels per unit = 4,500 barrels per hour Dechaffing = 3 units * 1500  barrels per unit = 4,500  barrels per hour Drying = 3 units * 200 barrels per unit = 600 barrels per hour Separating = 3 units * 400  barrels per unit = 1,200  barrels per hour Bulking and bagging = 4*200 + 2*1,000*(5/6) + 8,000/12 = 3,133 barrels per hour The bottleneck is in the drying process – where 600 barrels per hour of wet berries can be processed. The capacity of separator is 1,200 bbls/hr. Assume the rest of the 600 bbls/hr are dry berries. The maximum throughput rate is 1200 bbls/hr. National Cranberry Cooperative free essay sample According to the data provided, there is 50 % of incoming berries which were wet harvested. In the absolute terms, this amounts to 750 bbls/h. The three drying machines can only handle 600 bbls/h altogether, meaning that 150 bbls of berries have to be stored in the bins each hour while waiting for the drying process. The second bottleneck is â€Å"located† at the separators. The three separating lines have the capacity to separate 1200 bbls/h, while there are 1350 bbls/h ready to be separated. Therefore, 150 bbls of dry berries have to be stores each hour. At the end of the day (7 PM) there are 2400 bbls wet berries waiting for drying and separating, while also 2400 bbls of dry berries still have to go through the separation process. Drying process of 2400 bbls of wet harvested berries takes 4 additional hours and is finished at 11 PM. Simultaneously the separation is in process (for the dry harvested berries). After the last 600 bbls of wet harvested berries are dried it takes additional half an hour to separate them for quality measures. We will write a custom essay sample on National Cranberry Cooperative or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Separation process is finished at 11. 30 PM. 4. When would the last truck unload and how long would it have waited? Due to the fact that the capacity of the bins is large enough for both, dry (4000 bbls) and wet (1200 bbls only wet + 2000 bbls wet dry) harvested berries to be stored before entering the production process, there is no waiting needed for the truck drivers. All the trucks are able to unload by 7PM. 5. Changes in order to improve performance (estimate the costs and benefits) Based on our analysis we propose three possible solutions that would resolve a problem of company’s bottlenecks.