...[pic] |Source: |USDA/Agricultural Research Service | |Date: |January 3, 2007 | Berry Compound Thwarts Enzyme Linked To Cancer Science Daily — Recent research by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators has fortified the standing of pterostilbene (pronounced "tare-o-STILL-bean") for its health benefits, a compound found in berries such as blueberries and grapes, as a cancer inhibitor. During tests employing cell fragments from mice livers, ARS chemist Agnes Rimando and colleagues in Poland found that the compound strongly suppresses a type of an enzyme that activates cancer-causing processes. Rimando and her collaborators targeted an enzyme called cytochrome P450, which sets off a variety of compounds--known as "procarcinogens--that can turn substances such as cigarette smoke and pesticides into cancer-causing agents. Rimando has led numerous animal studies that focused on pterostilbene and its potential benefits to human health. This includes work showing that pterostilbene can help lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease, and that the compound is present in a genus of shrubs that includes many types of berries, including blueberries. She also led studies that found that the compound is a powerful antioxidant that shows cancer-fighting properties similar to those of resveratrol. Indeed, pterostilbene is a derivative of resveratrol, a compound found in large quantities in the skins...
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...operator. A major unnecessary cost is being incurred in the form of cranberries being misidentified by the chief berry receiver. Half of the 450,000 bbls of cranberries labeled as No. 3 turned out to be No.2, each one costing $1.5 for a total overpayment of $337,500. The cost of a light meter operator would be around $26,000/yr and the system cost would be $40,000, the total cost would be $66,000. With a savings of $337,500 per year, the return on investment in the light meter system would be 5.1 (337,500 / $66,000). 2. Purchase one additional dryer to increase process capacity by almost 33%. The dryer can be purchased for $60,000. Process capacity would increase to 800 bbls/hr, because each dryer rates 200bbls/hr. As the wet berry flow rate increases to 800 bbls/hr, the bottleneck is still on the dryers because (1125-800=325bbls) are still left unprocessed and the separators can still process 800+375=1175bbls from 1200bbls/hr. However, the resulting flow rate increase of around 33% could cut overtime labor during the fall by as much as $72,000 (12,000 over time hours x $6/hr) each year. The return on investment would therefore be positive at 0.2 ($72,000-$60,000 / $60,000). However, if we are to buy 2 dryers, the dryer capacity increases to 1,000bbls/hr, but another bottleneck will occur at the separator stage it cannot process 375dryberries + 1000wet berries/hr. Thus, it is ideal to buy just one more dryer. 3. Dry holding bins should be converted to wet-dry combination...
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...hours. Multiplying 1500 by (12) for a twelve hour processing day, then 18,000 is derived. Bins 1-16 hold 4000 bbl at a time, and bins 17-27 hold 2950 bbl at a time. There are 5 Kiwanee Dumpers (trucks) and each can ship 75 bbl of berries per delivery. Bins 1-16 hold 250 bbl each, so it takes about 3.33 dumps of a truck to fill one storage bin to capacity. 5 trucks at 75 bbl per trip (375 bbl) could fill bins 1-16 (capacity 4000 bbl per hour) in approximately 10.6 trips. 4. The possible capital investments considered by NCC are buying new equipment to reduce the time that drivers wait to unload picked berries. a. The fifth Kwanee Dumper cost $200,000. This acquisition increased loading capacity, yet accrued further overtime costs for drivers because of a lack of processing capabilities and waiting time to dump these loads. b. Another possible capital investment was $40,000 for a light meter system for color grading. No. 3 (premium) berries were bought for $1.50 bbl in 1995. Out of the 450,000 bbls. Of berries, only half were found to actually be No. 3’s. The benefits of this capital is great. c. It was proposed that some of the dry storage bins be converted for wet berry storage also, since the number of wet-berries received had been increasingly greater. This would cost $10,000 per bin. Or $60,000 per dryer each in order to...
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...receiving plant no. 1 (RP1), trucks would arrive randomly throughout the day, with a random amount of berries, anywhere from 20 to 400 bbls. In order to utilize transport vehicles more effectively, there should be crews scheduled differently on peak days. It only takes 5 to 10 minutes to unload a truck into a Kiwanne dumper, but the backup would occur when the holding bins were full, causing drivers to have waits up to 3 hours. The backup is not occurring in receiving, so now additional crews are necessary at that station. All feed conveyors are in use during peak times so no new crews need to be added there. However, there seems to be a backup occurring in the bagging station. Instead of keeping the fourth bagging machine as a spare, they should add another five-member team to operate the fourth bagging machine during peak hours. This would result in an additional 2,667 bbls per 12-hour period, or a total of 10,667 bbls per 12-hour period. The additional crews and adding of a bagging station would reduce the number of berries that need to be in holding, and cut down on wait time for the transport trucks. Calculations: 8,000 bbls/3 bagging machines = 2,667 bbls per machine per 12-hour period 4 bagging machines times 2,667 bbls per machine = 10,667 bbls per 12-hour period 10,667 bbls per 12- hour period means 21,333 bbls per 24-hour period 2. Would the installation of a berry grader positively impact the farmers’...
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...A WORKING REPORT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE (EDGE AND BLACKBERRY SERVICES) OF COMMERCIAL DIVISION, GRAMEENPHONE LTD. by Safat Al Mamun Rono ID: 0820580 An Internship Report Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Business Administration INDEPENDENT UNIVERSITY, BANGLADESH December, 2011 A working report on customer service (EDGE and Black Berry services) of commercial division, Grameenphone Ltd. A WORKING REPORT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE (EDGE AND BLACKBERRY SERVICES) OF COMMERCIAL DIVISION, GRAMEENPHONE LTD. by Safat Al Mamun Rono ID: 0820580 has been approved December, 2011 Mr. Chowdhury Rajkin Mohsin Senior Lecturer School of Business Independent University, Bangladesh December 07, 2011 Mr. Chowdhury Rajkin Mohsin Senior Lecturer School of Business Independent University, Bangladesh Subject: Submission of the internship working report. Dear Sir, I am hereby submitting my internship report. The last 3 months has been the most fabulous learning experience for me. Without your guidance and help this learning experience would not have been the way it has been. I have tried my level best to come up with as well written and informative report as possible. However, because of the confidentiality policy of Grameenphone Limited it has not been possible to put as many data and information as I would have liked to. So, I, therefore hope that, you will find it in order and if you have any query related to my intern report...
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...no. 1 (RP 1) faced by National Cranberry Cooperative during the cranberry harvesting period, viz. 1) too much waiting period for trucks before they unload berries at the RP1 and 2) too much overtime costs. There is also a secondary problem regarding grading of process berries. Half of the berries graded top quality are actually not top quality and do not deserve extra premiums paid on the top quality berries. 2.) Process Analysis We start by making a process flow diagram for the flow of berries at RP1 from the moment berries arrive at the RP1 in trucks to the moment they leave in RP1 after being bag packed, bulk loaded into trucks or loaded into bulk tins. The capacities of the various processes are based on the assumptions or data as shown below: Dumping Capacity Number of Kiwanee Dumpers = 5 Average time taken by truck to load the berries onto Kiwanee Dumpers = 7.5 minutes (Maximum being 10 and minimum being 5 minutes) Average weight of berries in a truck = 75 bbls. Dumping Capacity = 5 * 75 * 60 / 7.5 = 3000 bbls/hr. Holding Bin Capacities Bin No. 1-16 can hold dry berries only up to 250 bbls per bin. Total capacity of bin numbered 1-16 = 250*16 = 4000 bbls Bin No. 17-24 can hold dry/wet berries up to 250 bbls per bin Total capacity of bin numbered 17-24 = 250*8 = 2000 bbls. Bin No. 25-27 can hold wet berries up to 400 bbls per bin Total capacity of bin numbered 25-27 = 400*3 = 1200 bbls. De-stoning Capacity No. of de-stoning units = 3 Capacity of each unit...
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... In Walk Two Moons written by Sharon Creech, there are numerous instances where blackberries are mentioned by the main character, Salamanca. Salamanca or Sal, recently moved to Euclid, Ohio, bringing with her the memories of Bybanks, Kentucky, her mother, and blackberries. When invited to a new friend’s, Phoebe’s, house, Sal refuses the blackberry pie, but says, “I like blackberries very much.” Because of the memories attached to blackberries for Sal, blackberries symbolize Sal’s mother. In ne recollection Sal’s mother is walking in a field. Sal remembers writing in the school-required journal, “She popped the blackberries into her mouth. Then she looked all around…I thought I could detect as from a small dark stain, as from a blackberry kiss.” The blackberry kiss could signify Sal’s family’s love for each other and their community. During a dinner with Phoebe’s family, Sal remember vividly she and her mother walking “around the rims of the fields and pastures in Bybanks, picking blackberries. We did not pick from the bottom of the vine or from the top…for the rabbits…for the birds. The ones at people-height were for people.” This illustrations how much Sal and her mother care for animals, not just people, too. Throughout this, Sal’s mother is connected to each of these memories, causing blackberries to symbolize of Sal’s mother. In addition, Blackberries also signify Bybanks, Kentucky. Sal is home sick living Euclid, Ohio and a mere comment of blackberries brings memories of...
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...required storage capacity calculation and where to locate this inventory. INTRODUCTION Polarica is a company in northern Sweden. It is worldwide distributor of variety specialty food items. During the lastcouple of years the volume of wild berries, mostly blueberries,has increased a lot. This expansion forces Polarica to consider investments in freezing-in capacity and cold-storage capacity. Industrial Logistics, Lulea University of Technology were engaged to help Polarica to decide if they really needed additional capacity and, if so, where to geographically locate it by conducted a simple heuristic model base on load-distance analysis. With this model, the problem is tackled and solved. Q1: What capacity measure does Polarica used? According to David Barnes (2008) Capacity defined as level of activity or output that can be achieved (by operation, facility or organization) in given period of time under normal working conditions. However capacity needs to related to organization’s ability to supply output in order to meet customer demand. In the same way capacity defined, it is difficult to measure. So do happen to Polarica’s where the storage capacity needs to calculate and to revise the inventory location. Polarica selling wild berries and others specialty goods where the nature of the goods is perishable where inventory control play important role in their operation management. The measures that Polarica’s used in operations are the freezing-in capacity and the total storage...
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...“Blackberry Eating”, Galway Kinnell In the story “Blackberry Eating”, Galway Kinnell compares the beloved past time of eating berries with his love of expressing language in verbal communication. He uses the sound devices to develop how he enriches his poem to show his love of language and words. He uses alliteration to give meaning and depth to words. Kinnell also uses consonance heavily in this poem to lead the reader through the poem. He uses cacophony to slow down the reader to deliver emphasis on certain words. The title starts off with a cacophonic phrase. “Blackberry Eating” starts off rolling off your tongue with the first word. Then you encounter “Eating”, this word breaks up the flow of the title. This stops the reader and makes them assess the action that is occurring with the berries. In the phrase, “the stalks very prickly, a penalty” you stop and restart. You are led back to prickly with the word penalty. You get the understanding that the thorns are a punishment to the reader for enjoying the forbidden meal derived of the “black art of blackberry-making”. Another example of cacophany is the use of the letter B in the poem. The use of black, blackberries, breakfast provide a bounty of bold words that give a movement to the work that is very melodic. Alliteration is used throughout the poem to create a slippery, smooth progression of the poem. When he says “black blackberries” it describes the richness and ripeness of the fruit. Another example...
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...long-term achievable throughput rate. Because wet and dry berries follow different routes at RP#1 there will be a maximum achievable throughput for each. The capacity of the dryers is the bottleneck for the wet berries. The maximum throughput for wet berries is 600 bbls/hr. For dry berries the separation process is the bottleneck. The maximum throughput for dry berries is 1200 bbls/hr. The percentage of wet berries to dry berries would affect the throughput rate. Given the current proportion of berries received the capacity of the dryers would be the maximum throughput of the system. The dryers are the system bottleneck. And as the trend of water harvesting continues, this situation worsens. All the process/resources at RP#1 contribute to the throughput but the limitation is the bottleneck. 3. The trucks wait because the processing capacity is less than the system input. And the temporary holding bins are inadequate to buffer the berries coming in and the plants processing capacity. But by using the Theory of Constraints to identify the system bottle necks we are able to discover the root cause of the waits. The large back log of berries is caused by several factors The plant is not currently equipped to handle the supply of wet berries. This problem has likely been increasing over the years as more cranberries are being wet-harvested. This problem is evident in the lack of web berry temporary storage and inadequate berry drying capacity. These bottlenecks are slowing the...
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...buy some new equipment. NCC’s overtime costs were out of control and the growers were upset that their trucks and drivers had to spend so much time waiting to unload process fruit into the receiving plant. Will Walliston, the superintendent, thought that the way to avoid these problems was to increase their capacity by buying new equipment. However, in order to buy new equipment it was very important to move quickly since the purchasing and installation lead times are in excess of six months. Another possible capital investment considered was the installation of a light meter system for color grading. Using color pictures as a guide, the truckload of berries were graded according to color and classified as Nos. 1, 2A, 2B or 3, from poorest color (No. 1) to best (No.3). There was a premium of $1.50 per bbl. paid for No. 3 berries. Whenever there was any question about whether or not a truckload is No. 2B or...
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...Our class attended a tour of Driscoll’s Berry in Watsonville on Thursday, October 22. Driscoll’s is a local ag company that distributes the berries that their growers grow. Driscoll’s has nurseries where they grow the plants that they give to their growers to plant and harvest. The plants are the proprietary property of Driscoll’s. After the growers harvest the crops they bring the berries to Driscoll’s coolers where the berries are inspected by graders for quality, and then the berries are chilled to thirty-four degrees in the cooler before being loaded on trucks and sent to customers. Last year Driscoll’s sold over one billion pounds of fruit, filled 150,000 orders, and loaded 38,000 trucks. Driscoll’s is the leading berry provider...
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...process and market their berries. In the early 1990’s, there was a growing surplus of berries so the growers resorted to the Agriculture Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 to restrict the amount of crop processed. In addition, the cranberry harvesting process was becoming more automated during this period of time. There are two types of berry harvesting: 1) water harvesting which involves flooding bogs, using machines to shake the bushes, and collecting the berries that float to the top; and 2) dry harvesting which requires hand picking. Water harvesting typically results in a yield of 20% more berries than dry harvesting, however, it causes more damage and reduces the time between harvest and long-term storage. Cranberries are processed for one of two purposes: 1) preparing raw berries for sale; and 2) preparing berries for use in juice, canning, freezing, and other processes. The process for preparing berries to be processed at Receiving Plant 1 (RP1) is as follows: 1) Bulk trucks arrive at random with an average delivery of 75 barrels (bbl: which weighs ~100 pounds). 2) The truck is weighed, the full and empty truck weight is recorded and a sample(s) of 30 pounds is taken for initial berry grading (Lowest grade and price 1, 2A, 2B, 3 Highest grade and price). 3) The truck backs into 1 of 5 dumpers 4) A conveyor belt takes the berries to the second level to one of 27 holding bins (takes 7-8 minutes): 1-24 Holds 250 bbls of wet or dry berries (6,000 bbls total) ...
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...5 minutes (max:10, min:5) Average weight of berries in truck 75 bbls Total Dumping capacity 5 * 75 * 60 / 7.5 = 3000 bbls/hr Holding Capacity Total capacity of bins numbered 1-16 250*16 = 4000 bbls Total capacity of bins numbered 17-24 250*8 = 2000 bbls Total capacity of bins numbered 25,26,27 400 * 3 = 1200 bbls Destoning Capacity 1500bbls/hr x 3 = 4500 bbls / hr Dechaffing capacity 1500bbls/hr x 3 = 4500 bbls / hr Drying Capacity 200bbls/hr x 3 = 600bbls/hr Therefore, we can see that the drying stage is the bottleneck. 5. Overtime issue on peak day: total wet berries in one peak day: 18340bbls x 70% = 12838bbls processing rate: 600bbls/hr (bottle neck) total working hours = 12838bbls / 600bbls/hr = 21.4 hrs overtime = 21.4hrs - 12hrs = 9.4 hrs. (We found that two shifts can help with the situation, which means that the workers will work 16 hours a day (7am-3pm, and 3pm - 11pm). And in this scenario, overtime should be 21.4 hrs - 16hrs = 5.4hrs.) 6. Truck waiting We assume that trucks starts arriving at 7am, and we already knew the bottle neck will be the drying stage only for wet berries, so Inventory piled up rate = rate of wet berries needed to be processed - processing rate of bottle neck = 18340bbls x 70% / 12 hrs - 600bbls/hr = 1070bbls / hr - 600bbls / hr = 470bbls / hr (a barrel of cranberries weighs 100lbs) And we know bins #17 - #27 (total 11 bins) can hold 3200bbls, so we can get how long wet berries will be filled in the bins. 3200bbls...
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...(including Destone, Dechaff, and Dry) start from 7am. B. On an average “busy” day, there are 18,000 bbls delivered over 12-hour period (from 7am to 7pm). C. Wet berries are 70% of all berries. D. Holding bins 17-24 are dedicated to wet berries. E. Capacity of each of five dumpers is 600 bbl/hr. F. When holding bins for wet berries are full, the Kiwanee dumpers are not available to process wet berries, i.e., dumpers cannot temporarily store any wet berries. G. There are 20 peak days in one year, where there is truck waiting happened. H. Truck Drivers are paid by $18/hr Submitted questions: 1. Analyze the current process. [Using the process flow map, available in the Excel file associated with the assignment, of the current process at Receiving Plant #1, mark the capacity of each of the activities. Show the flows of wet and dry berries separately.] 2. On a busy day, what is RP#1’s current maximum throughput rate? 3. Assuming that processing starts at 7 am on a “busy” day, present the situation during such a day, by constructing an inventory build-up diagram for bins and trucks. 4. What are the possible capital investments considered by NCC? 5. Quantify the costs and benefits for NCC’s investment for the fifth Kiwanee dumper in 1980. 6. Quantify the costs and benefits of “converting dry berry holding bins into wet/dry berry holding bins.” Requirements for submitted...
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