National Cranberry Cooperative Case Study Essay

Write a 4-5 page paper in which you create a plan for a low-cost automated inventory system in which

This paper will be focused specifically on the production of Driscoll’s red raspberries. I will be looking at their supplier Reiter Affiliated Companies, the labor conditions, wages, and difference between the conventional and organic raspberries. There has also been a movement to change the definition of organic and alternative foods so that it also includes the labor conditions. Therefore, there will be clearer difference between organic foods and nonorganic other than just environmental and sustainable differences between the two. The goal is to describe the production and process of distributing raspberries from the time they are planted until they are pick and then distributed in stores.

Challenge two: Inventory/Shipping: Shipping and receiving are sharing facilities due to one railroad spur being available. The company is having problems producing enough products for the customers. This lack of production cause large quantities of finished materials to be stored

Addition of two new dryers implies the increased capacity for the drying station. They add an additional capacity of 2*200bbls wet berries per hour.

 Each additional dryer will increase the amount of water-harvested berries that can be processed by 200 bbls. per hour for berries loaded to bulk trucks,

| 10-20% lower: less labor intensive and fewer expensive fruits and nuts. Let 's take avg 15%

: Total capacity of 5 dumpers = 450 (barrel/hr) * 5 (dupms) = 2250 barrels/hr

First of all, purchasing a light meter and hiring an operator would reduce large amount of unnecessary cost incurred from cranberries that are misidentified by the chief berry receiver. The case reports that half of 450,000 bbls of berries were misidentified as No.3. Since $1.50 was paid for every No.3 berries, we can say that $337,500 was overpaid. Assuming that the cost of this system is about $40,000 and the cost of full-time skilled operator is about $34,944 (as a straight-time pay rate for the full-year employee) per year, we can calculate the return on investment in the light meter system. The return would be 4.503 ($337,500/$74,944). Even though, the operator gets paid more than the amount above, the return on the investment would still be positive.

In order to remedy the backlog at the Dryer area, it is recommended that one (1) extra Dryer be purchases, and not two (2) as was suggested by Will Walliston. Since the Separators (capacity of 1,200 bbls) are too big and expensive to improve upon or replicate, NCC should increase the capacity of the Dryer process so 1,200 Wet Berries (double) can be passed on to the Separators instead the current 600 bbls (filling up its capacity with Wet berries is ideal since Dry Berries can sit overnight).

iii. Processing merchandise while leaving and entering the warehouses was In itself a very inefficient and unfruitful task because of the bad state of inventory management in the warehouse. This contributed to frequent stock outs in the stores because of the lack of proper inventory processing.

“Economists at the University of California, Davis said that agriculture, once a $44 billion annual business in California, will suffer a financial hit of $2.2 billion due to revenue losses and higher water costs” (Associated Press, 2014). Many farmers are going out of business because the production costs have increased with rising inflation, while revenue has decreased. Others have reduced their farmland plantations which decreases the crop production. Some of the affected crops include oranges, pistachios and rice. One example of how this affects the nation is the California almonds. “California [is] the source of eighty percent of the world’s almonds” (Bloomberg, 2014). This year farmers had to come up with new tactics to rescue the nut from drought “by diverting the water used for vegetables and drilling more water wells to keep the trees hydrated” (Bloomberg, 2014). Farmers are not the only group of workers affected by the drought.

Tasks:  What should Alison do? o Develop plans to improve the inventory management o Develop time-based supply strategies to bring competitive advantages to the organization  Identify the functions and forms of inventory  What are alternatives for inventory management? o ABC classification o Supplier-managed inventories (SMI) o Just-on-time or Just-in-time (JIT) o Enhance the forecasting system (factor correlated with inventory variation)  Provide training programs for current and new hiring employees 1

The organization in this study, a multi-billion dollar warehousing and distribution company, has been housed in an old building and will be moved to a new state-of-the-art facility. This move involves the planning, organizing, staging and moving of products from one location to the other. Included in planning needs are signage, warehouse racking placement, warehouseman selector choosing routes, freezer, cooler and dry product placement. Incorporated into this move will be the necessity to deal with contractors who are completing the building as well as contacting all vendors and suppliers to inform them of the change of location and service changes during the two-day transition period. The actual moving of all products will require 16 hours, 30 employees on two shifts at two different locations.

Full capacity of the factory (900,000 tons) is expected to reach in 2003 so this domestic production could reduce trade import more than US$ 50 million every year (exhibit 8).

to an additional 600,000 pounds of grade ‘A’ tomatoes could be purchased without affecting the