National Cranberry Cooperative
- Submitted by: ahmed1984
- Views: 191
- Category: Other
- Date Submitted: 02/12/2015 11:17 AM
- Pages: 4
- Report this Essay
Background
The vice president of operations at National Cranberry Cooperative (NCC) is not convinced with the efficiency of the operations of the process fruit at receiving plant #1. He had spent time with the superintendent and the growers and then tasked his assistant with investigating the situation in order to put forward proposals to improve operations before the crops come in.
NCC is one of the largest cooperatives that processes and markets the berries of the growers and the case is concerned with receiving plan number 1 (RP1) and process fruit operation in particular. The latter is relatively sophisticated arrangement and encompasses a number of steps that ultimately gather bulk berries and prepares them for storage and processing, the inputs to the process are either wet or dry harvested.
Key issues and facts
There are a number of issues observed in this case, some are of more significance than others. Firstly, a key problem is related to the cost of overtime that appears to be more than what NCC is willing to accept. The work force does not seem to be effectively managed and the company ended up paying high amounts for overtime.
The other main problem is that the growers, who pay for the rent of trucks and drivers, complain about the long time they need to wait before unloading at the plant. This appears to be caused by the limited capacity of the temporary holding bins. Despite the fact that that dumping the contents of a truck usually takes no more than 8 minutes, trucks needed to wait much longer when holding bins became full thus stopping the inputs from proceeding further in the process.
On the other hand, in absence of precise tool for color grading, NCC has paid total premium of USD 337,500 in 1995 for berries that turned out not to be of the best range. There is room for human mistakes and the receiver chooses No 3 in case of doubt between 2B and 3. One anticipated problem is the level of readiness for the increase in wet harvested...
The vice president of operations at National Cranberry Cooperative (NCC) is not convinced with the efficiency of the operations of the process fruit at receiving plant #1. He had spent time with the superintendent and the growers and then tasked his assistant with investigating the situation in order to put forward proposals to improve operations before the crops come in.
NCC is one of the largest cooperatives that processes and markets the berries of the growers and the case is concerned with receiving plan number 1 (RP1) and process fruit operation in particular. The latter is relatively sophisticated arrangement and encompasses a number of steps that ultimately gather bulk berries and prepares them for storage and processing, the inputs to the process are either wet or dry harvested.
Key issues and facts
There are a number of issues observed in this case, some are of more significance than others. Firstly, a key problem is related to the cost of overtime that appears to be more than what NCC is willing to accept. The work force does not seem to be effectively managed and the company ended up paying high amounts for overtime.
The other main problem is that the growers, who pay for the rent of trucks and drivers, complain about the long time they need to wait before unloading at the plant. This appears to be caused by the limited capacity of the temporary holding bins. Despite the fact that that dumping the contents of a truck usually takes no more than 8 minutes, trucks needed to wait much longer when holding bins became full thus stopping the inputs from proceeding further in the process.
On the other hand, in absence of precise tool for color grading, NCC has paid total premium of USD 337,500 in 1995 for berries that turned out not to be of the best range. There is room for human mistakes and the receiver chooses No 3 in case of doubt between 2B and 3. One anticipated problem is the level of readiness for the increase in wet harvested...