National Cranberry Cooperative

907 Words4 Pages
The national Cranberry Cooperative (NCC) is one of the larger organizations, formed and owned by growers of cranberries to process and markets their berries. Two major issues has been highlighted by its vice president, Hugo Schaeffer, to his assistant, Mel O’Brien, to address and suggest proper solutions related to process fruit operation. First issue was related to the high cost incurred as overtime costs paid to the worker in addition to the $200,000 spent on developing 5th Kiwanee dumper. The second issue is related to the increasing waiting time the driver of the trucks has to spend before being able to unload their shipment, which is incurring more cost as the truck is leased for $100 per hour. Receiving plant No.1 (RP1), receives both ‘fresh’ and ‘process’ fruit during a season. Both operations are totally separate from each other. Since our focus is on the process fruit operation, it will be addressed in depth. The process fruit operation is divided up into 5 processes each will be analyzed separately as follow. Process #1: Process Fruit Receiving It’s the initial step of weighting the truck delivery (gross weight & tare weight), two steps process is running parallel to determine the estimated weight of the clean, dry, usable berries. A third step is carried on as well to classify the berries based on the color as it is considered a very important attribute of both juice and products and whole sauce. This is done manually using color picture, and the finest color (No.3) is paid a premium of $1.50 per barrel. The issues that could be enhanced is 1# scheduling the delivery (knowing the fact that average truck delivery was 75 bbls and by calculating the maximum capacity the plant could deal with and the timing required) to clear up the clutter and unnecessary cost incurred. As this will reduce the waiting time and the amount paid up as overtime. 2# the

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