Assignment 2- team 3

Team 3 Joy Merkel, Donald Stralkus, Teresita Rojas, Donte Whitehead, Zanyang chen


What type of product flow does Allen Flavors use?
The manufacturing plant at Allen Flavors uses batch flow production in it’s plant. The plant uses lot numbers to track the material and production in the facility. This is important in the food industry. The company’s quality assurance department tests a sample from each batch before it is shipped to the bottler to assure it’s quality. If a product is recalled or there is a problem with a batch it is easier to track where the product has shipped.
The machinery used, large industrial mixers, are used for different products. Similar steps are used in each batch, but the variety may come from the actual products and amount going into each product. The company has two different kinds of customers; customers that have had a product developed and custom made for them, and customers who order from stock flavors and teas. Both are produced similarly, in batches with specific lot numbers assigned.

What type of customer order does Allen Flavors process?
Some of Allen Flavors customers are MTO, make-to-order and some are MTS, make-to-stock. About Eighty percent of their customers are make-to-order. These customers are ones that have gone through the lab to develop their specific product, and order for production runs at their co-packers and bottlers. These products are specific to their brand and are custom made for them. Other customers, such as coffee flavor customers, order from a set list of products kept in stock.

Which cell do they fall into in the process characteristics matrix?
On the Process Characteristics Matrix, Allen Flavors lands in two categories as mentioned. They fall in the Batch, Make-to-Stock and Batch, Make-to-Order category.

What are some of the factors influencing their process selection?
There are many factors that influence the process selection at a beverage manufacturer. Large amounts of products are being made and shipped every day. Lot numbers must be assigned to each batch to keep track of all. Continuous production and assembly line production would not work for Allen Flavors as much of the production is made to suit a specific need at one time. Project production would not work for the company either. These products may be manufactured once every month or every other month and are not on that large a scale, which is necessary for project production.

Can they adopt any of the mass customization methods discussed?
It would be very difficult for Allen Flavors to adopt a method such as mass customization. When a customer comes to Allen Flavors to develop a product, they are usually very particular on what they would like in their product. These products are not going in to one person’s home as some other mass customization products may be. Beverage customers have had products created specific to their requests. The amounts used in each product are very specific. As an example, a batch may ask for 115.87 lbs of Phenylalanine. With amounts as specific as this, it would be hard to utilize the mass customization process.