B Buffs

Supply chain management is the engine that drives our business forward, integrating a wide range of functions to ensure efficiency, responsiveness, and resilience. Among the many critical pillars are process analysis, queuing, and inventory management—each playing a key role in…

When you think about supply chain management, you might picture trucks moving goods, warehouses filled with inventory, or production lines running at full speed. But have you ever stopped to ask: Are these processes working as efficiently as possible? Or,…

In process analysis, once we have mapped the process, the next step is to focus on run time and capacity and other key metrics for each stage. These metrics allow us to optimize the process and make data-driven decisions. Measuring…

How Can We Increase This Process’s Overall Capacity? In the previous post, we: The process’s run time and capacity for each step are as follows: Step Process Time (hr/unit) Capacity (units/week) 1 Cut 3.20 12.50 2 Build 1 5.00 8.00…

In our previous posts, we explored the fundamentals of supply chain management, focusing on what capacity is and the various strategies you can use to increase it. However, a crucial element was missing from the equation: demand. This post will…

Demand Rates Now, let’s analyze the demand during the peak season. The expected average delivery this year is approximately the same as last year’s: 16,379.8 bbls Of this, 70% is expected to be wet cranberries. To determine if the current…

Removing Idle Time In our previous post, we identified the primary challenge at the National Cranberry processing plant: a severe bottleneck in the wet cranberry processing line because the truck arrival rate exceeded the plant’s capacity. Now, we will explore…

Let’s explore the concepts of setup cost and batch size. These ideas are fundamental to almost every business, and we can understand them easily by looking at a simple one-person business example: a YouTube creator’s workflow. What is Setup Cost?…