Nation Cranberry

Executive Summary

Based on your request, I have reviewed Receiving Plant # 1 (RP1’s) last fall’s process fruit operations and confirmed the issues that the Receiving Plant, RP # 1 is facing based on our discussion on February 14, 1981.

        The purpose of this memo is to (i) outline all outstanding issues and provide possible solutions to the issues (ii) to recommend specific changes and actions for your review. In this review, I have examined, in depth, the causes of:

      - Long wait times for truckers at RP1
      - Overtime costs and absenteeism
      -Berry grading issues and as a result
un-necessary premiums paid out.
      The solutions to the above mentioned problems are as follows:
    i) Eliminating Bottlenecks in the process: The major issue of overtime and truckers waiting to unload the berries is dealt in this section.
      The reason the truckers are waiting is because the receiving plant’s holding bins are filled up and there is no temporary storage available and the filling up of holding bins is attributed to the bottleneck in the process (The process step with the least capacity for a product is called its bottleneck). Wet and dry berries follow different paths and results in maximum achievable throughput through each path. From Capacity calculations and process flow analysis, Fig 1 in Appendix 1, the bottleneck for wet berries is caused by the lower capacity of the dryers. For dry berries, the separation process is the bottle neck. The maximum throughput of dry berries is 1200 bbls/hr and for wet berries is 600 bbls/hr. Based on harvesting trend of using wet berries, the situation will worsen this fall (1981). The reason for long wait times of the trucks.
Investment made last winter
100k for 5th Kiwanee dumper at RP1
Problems
1. Overtime cost out of control this fall
2. Trucks and drivers wait to unload process fruit into RP1
Solution suggested by Walliston:
1. Buy and install 2 new dryers 40k each
2. Convert dry berry... [continues]

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