National Cranberry Corporation Case Study

1. Performance Problems of Plant No.1 (RP1)

There are a few problems facing RP1. Firstly, there are high payroll and overtime costs due to absenteeism and irregularity of the plant's operating times. These lead to difficulty in scheduling workers to meet the shift demands and an overload on the payroll. Long waiting times for the trucks due to the capacity of receiving food are also upsetting the growers who leased the trucks. Finally, there is an inaccuracy in the grading of berries upon receipt as only half the berries graded as number 3 turn out to be number 3 when used.

2. Process Flow Diagram of the Cranberry Process

3. Capacity of Each Process Step

Process Step No. of units Per Unit Capacity Total Capacity (bbls/hr)

Dumping 5 600 3000

Destoning 3 1500 4500

Dechaffing (Wet) 2 1500 3000

Dechaffing (Dry) 1 1500 1500

Drying 3 200 600

Quality Grading (Separators) 3 400 1200

Bailey Mills (Separators) 3 400 1200

4. Implied Utilization of Each Process Step

Scenario: Peak Harvest Day – 18,000 barrels of berries unloaded with 70% of them wet harvested

Process No. of units Per Unit Capacity Capacity (bbls/hr) Required Capacity Implied Utilization

Dry Wet Total

Dumping 5 600 3000 450 1050 1500 50.0%

Destoning 3 1500 4500 450 0 450 10.0%

Dechaffing (Wet) 2 1500 3000 0 1050 1050 70.0%

Dechaffing (Dry) 1 1500 1500 450 0 450 30.0%

Drying 3 200 600 0 1050 1050 175.0%

Quality Grading 3 400 1200 450 1050 1500 125.0%

Bailey Mills 3 400 1200 450 1050 1500 125.0%

Therefore, the bottleneck of the process would be "Drying" as it has the highest implied utilization.

5. Time of Process Completion

On a peak harvest day, 18,000 barrels of berries are unloaded with 70% of them wet harvested and trucks arrive uniformly over a period of 12 hours.

Assuming that each truck carried the same number of barrels, 1500 barrels (18,000/12) are delivered every hour over a period of 12 hours. Each truck will contain 1050 barrels (70%) of wet berries and 450 barrels of dry