Reference no: EM133243162

Written Assignment:National Cranberry Cooperative. This is a challenging case, please allocate sufficient amount of time. The numbers in the case are somewhat vague, please use the following assumptions for your analysis (if these numbers are different from those given in the case, please ignore the numbers in the case. In case of ambiguities, ask Professor):

1. Drivers cost farmers $8 per hour (you may ignore the number given in case).
2. An average busy day has a continuous arrival rate of berries of 1,500bbls/hr between 7am to 7pm.
3. Of the arriving berries 2/3rd (i.e., 66.66%) of the berries are wet berries and the remaining are dry berries.
4. There are 20 busy days in the average growing season.
5. Assume there is sufficient capacity in Bagging and Bulking.
6. Assume that there are 20 workers and that they are evenly split between full time and seasonal employees. Full time workers are paid $13 per hour and season workers are paid $8 per hour. All workers gets paid 1.5 times their regular hourly wages for overtime hours.

Address the following questions in your write-up with emphasis on Question 6:

1. Draw a detailed process flow map of the current process at Receiving Plant #1. What is the capacity of resources in each process step?
2. What is the maximum long-term achievable throughput rate (flow rate) of Receiving Plant #1? What factors affect this throughput rate?
3. Currently what is (are) the major reason(s) for trucks waiting and excessive overtime?
4. On average, how long will the trucks have to wait on a busy day? Assume a 11:00am start of processing of berries.
5. What benefits would you expect if processing time was moved up from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. during the peak period? Should this be done for the entire season?
6. What are your recommendations to NCC on how to deal with their problems?