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Part B
4a. How often during an 8-hour workday would you have a setup change in the extraction process (e.g., how often would you changeover to another size orange)?
Since we also need to replace the filter every 90 minutes which adds another 30 minutes to overall downtime, it makes sense then to try to minimize as much idle time as possible by coordinating when the bin has to be changed at EXTRACTION with the filter change at FILTRATION. In order to meet the processing requirements; each orange size must be processed at least once per day, and …show more content…
Once again, management is considering improvements, but this time to the entire system. Which of the following improvements would you recommend to maximize the output of this plant? Why?

Reducing the blending setup time from 40 to 30 minutes @ a cost of $50,000 seems to make the most sense. Choice (d) increases capacity @ the BLENDING stage by reducing processing time of orders coming in. What’s more, (d) increases overall capacity to 648,000 lbs per week.
If we look at the other choices like (b) for example, does not really help because it did not increase capacity. Choice (c) reducing the filtrations setup time from 20 minutes to 10 increases capacity by 31,074 pounds per week at a cost of