National Cranberry Coop

Memorandum:

Re: Production Concerns

I am concerned about the problems observed last fall at Receiving Plant #1. The growers are very upset because of the bottleneck in the receiving area. At the same time overtime costs are increasing. Walliston thinks the way to avoid these problems next fall is to buy and install one or two new dryers and to convert our dry holding bins.

Currently, the different types of harvesting are big factors that are affecting National Cranberry Cooperative’s (NCC) operation. There is the water harvesting side of the process for this operation. The water harvesting of cranberries has grown exponentially over the last few years from 25,000 bbls in 1993 to 350,000 bbls in 1995. This year alone it is expected to grow an additional 12% from 58% the previous year. This is going to affect your current capacity and how quickly you are able to process the wet harvest. Additionally, the wet harvest generates 20% more business as compared to dry harvest. Furthermore, the fact that the wet berries skips a step in the process and goes straight to the dechaffing, as shown in Exhibit A. That is different from the dry harvest which needs to be destoned before going to be dechaffed and is a major factor to be considered.

As a leader in the cranberry industry, it is time that NCC steps forward to take on some changes in order to increase efficiency in its operation. The entire process flow by which cranberries enter, move, and exit Receiving Plant No. 1 (RP1) can be improved. There are several changes that can be reworked in certain stages of the production process. The suggested improvements will reduce the expensive overtime costs that have been incurred and reduce the waiting time for inbound delivery trucks. This will enable the plant to operate at better business hours and increase the overall profitability of NCC. At this time, when trucks drop off each load of berries they go through several steps before they are either stored or...