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Mother Parkers' Gets Consultation |
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Friday, 25 April 2008 |
Supply Chain Consultants, designer and supplier of the Zemeter suite of supply chain management (SCM) software products, reported that Mother Parkers, a leading coffee and tea manufacturer, has implemented a new scheduling solution at its Fort Worth, Texas manufacturing facility. Supply Chain Consultants (SCC) developed the unique scheduling algorithms for Mother Parkers, with the goal of improving schedule attainment, customer service and reducing overtime.
"The production of coffee is an extremely complex process with success dependent upon a tightly coupled schedule," says Dennis Paynter, vice president of coffee operations for Mother Parkers. "SCC was able to understand our business and manufacturing challenges to develop a solution that is unique to Mother Parkers and helps us continue to improve our scheduling functions by totally synchronizing manufacturing in a way that ensures our ability to deliver quality products to our customers on time."
Following a successful scheduling implementation at Mother Parkers' Canadian facility located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, the company again turned to SCC for a solution in its Fort Worth plant. Because the Fort Worth facility is much newer than the facility in Mississauga, the manufacturing process had much greater flexibility with how the product transitions from roasting to packaging. The first phase of the project involved SCC working with the Fort Worth facility to minimize transition times on the packaging lines, then stage the production at the roaster and grinder levels.
The second phase of the implementation provides Mother Parkers with enhancements specific to the requirements of the newer Fort Worth facility. This phase of the scheduling solution provides a more efficient use of existing equipment to address the critical timing of moving coffee from roasting to a tempering environment, thus providing Mother Parkers with additional capacity. SCC project managers also developed a linear programming model that allows schedulers to analyze crewing requirements on the packaging lines. This faster, more accurate analysis enables plant managers to ensure there are an adequate number of operators and utility technicians available to run the processing schedule, creating a better utilization of personnel and ultimately reducing costly overtime.
"Mother Parkers is known for providing quality coffee and tea to its customers, while also using the best technology to efficiently manage production," says Sujit Singh, Supply Chain Consultants’ chief operating officer. "By providing a unique scheduling solution that specifically addresses Mother Parkers’ manufacturing challenges, SCC is helping the company continue to build on this reputation of quality and service."
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