Bradfor Manufacturing - Plant Production Planning

BRADFOR MANUFACTURING. PLANT PRODUCTION PLANNING. (The Situation)

You are a manager of operations of a plant that produces puddings. One of their main duties is to prepare a plan for aggregate production plant. The plan is an important tool for establishing the annual budget of the production area. The plan provides information on production rates, labor requirements, and projected levels of inventories of finished goods for the coming year.

You made the boxes containing envelopes of custard powder in different packing lines at its plant. A packaging line has a plurality of machines linked by product conveyors. At the beginning of the line the flan mixture and then introduced in small envelopes. These envelopes are introduced into boxes, which are collected and placed in larger boxes 48 boxes containing custard. Finally, 160 boxes are placed on each pallet. Pallets are placed in the boarding area, from where the various distribution centers. Over the years, the technology has improved packaging lines, so that all the different flavors can be produced in relatively small batches without loss of preparation time (set-up). The plant has 15 lines, but currently only uses 10 of these. It takes six employees per production line.

Product demand fluctuates from month to month. There is also a seasonal component, in which case sales reach their peak before the day of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter each year. In addition to this the marketing area for a promotion with special offers volume discount. The business is good and the company has experienced an overall increase in sales.

The plant sends the product to four strategically located warehouses with trucks that distribute the product every day. The volume of shipments are based on maintaining the policy defined values ​​inventory levels. These goals early inventories were calculated in two weeks supply.

In the past the company has had a policy of producing quantities close to the forecasted sales due to limited storage capacity, even though its production capacity has been sufficient to support this policy.

The marketing department has prepared a sales forecast for next year, based on quarterly sales quotas, which used to establish an incentive program for sellers. Sales are mainly large supermarkets. The flan is shipped to supermarkets from distribution warehouses according to orders placed by them.