Process Improvement Analysis February 13, 2009

P09713 Kate Gleason

Process Improvement Analysis February 13, 2009

Introduction & Objective

The process for scaling dry ingredients for the bread and roll products in the Wegmans Bake Shop is currently very inefficient. After observing the process, it was determined that a feasible solution is to reduce the amount of walking time of the scaling worker by combining the short-term storage area and the scaling area. Eliminating this walking time will save at least 42 minutes per day. In order to do this, a long-term storage area will be implemented along with a new inventory management strategy.

The process improvements will aim to optimize this new inventory management strategy by determining how the ingredients will be stored, how much of each ingredient will be stored in long-term storage, how often each ingredient will have to be restocked in the short-term storage area, and any new labor requirements. The new inventory management strategy will be used to develop the new process flow diagram.

Methodology

To reach this objective, the ingredient usage data provided by Wegmans was used. It was determined that it will be best to store all ingredients as pallets so forklifts can continue to transport whole pallets without having to transport partial pallets or single bags from the long-term storage area. From the calculations previously performedto determine the daily usage of each ingredient it was possible todetermine the number of pallets that will need to be transported form long-term storage to short-term storage on a daily basis.

It was concluded that storing each ingredient on a pallet will require the capacity of the short-term storage area to ideally be 45 pallets. Through coordination with the layout analysis, it was determined that the short-term storage area will be able to meet this capacity.

The daily ingredient usage data was used to determine the frequency with which bags are removed from the pallets in short-term storage.These results were then used to determine the frequency with which pallets of each ingredient would have to be transported from long-term storage to replenish short-term storage. The independent replenishment schedules for each ingredient were combined to level the daily requirements for transporting materials form long-term to short-term storage. A daily short-term storage restocking time was then calculated using the number of pallets requiring transport each day and the speed at which the forklift can travel.

Results

These are the calculations used to determine spacing requirements and the restocking schedules.

These are the individual ingredient restocking requirements.

Product: StonegroundAlternating 3 bags per day/2 bags per day

Product: Specialty StonegroundAlternating 2 bags per day/1 bag per day

Product: UltragrainNo restock needed every 11th day

Product: Vital Wheat GlutenNo restock needed every 6th day

Product:BreadmateNo restock needed every 5th day

Product: Salt SuperiorNo restock needed every 4th day

Product:YeastAlternating every day/every other day

Product: DOH Conditn AAEvery other day

Product:Gran SugarAlternating every 2 days/every 3 days

Product: EZ Potato BaseEvery 3 days

Watson Honey Bran Base

Hearty Bread Base

Product:Watson Lite Wheat BaseAlternating every 3 days/every 4 days

Product:DMEvery 4 days

Watson Lite White Base

Product: Stay Soft WEvery 5 days

Product: White Rye FlourEvery 6 days

12 Grain Blend

Canadian Oat Base

Product: NFEvery 7 days

EZ Kaiser Base

Dry Dimalt/Non Diastatic

Product: Buttermilk BlendEvery 8 days

Product: Med Granulated SugarEvery 10 days

Potato Base (Vandenburgh)

Watson Oat Bran Base

Corn Sugar Solids

Product:Brown SugarEvery 16 days

Course Cracked Wheat

Odessa Pump Base

Dry Molasses

Caravan Rye 12 Base

Soy Flour

Product:EZ SourEvery 25 days

Product:Dakota SpecialtyEvery 35 days

Product:CinnamonEvery 40 days

Whole Caraway Seeds

Omega 3 Powder

Product:SeasoningEvery 50 days

Ground Caraway

Double Spice

B&V Flavor

Discussion

The major changes in the process involve the new layout and the new inventory management strategy. The new layout will cut down on the amount of walking done by the scaling worker, but will require daily restocking of the short term storage by a forklift before 2pm. The new layout will save the scaling worker 35 to 45 minutes of walking time per shift. The daily restocking will take between 30 and 45 minutes everyday and will have to be done by 2pm, when the scaling operation begins.

The change in the process flow diagram comes from the fact that the scaling worker will start working at 2pm and be done with preparation shortly after the batch cards arrive. There will be no dead time between preparation and the arrival of the batch cards as there was before.

Moving the bin area into the short-term storage area will eliminate the need for the shelves used to transport scaling buckets filled with dry ingredients. The scaling worker can simply place the scaling buckets onto the staging cart. This eliminates the ergonomic concern associated with lifting heavy buckets to the top shelves of the transport unit.

The short-term storage area will have the capacity to handle the leveling requirements. The maximum pallets to be stored in short-term storage due to leveling is 10 more than the 45 pallets indicated previously, making the minimum short-term storage capacity 55. The top (third) shelves of the pallet racks in the short-term storage area have the capacity to hold these extra pallets.

The implementation of the sifting and screening equipment in the new process will be done considered in the later portion of the Analysis phase..

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