Applying the Concepts of Operations Management in the Issue of Plant Waste in a Bakery

Reducing Wastage in a Bakery
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Reducing Wastage in a Bakery
The world has been shifting towards ensuring sustainability. The need to minimize wastage of resources has been hailed as critical in ensuring that the earth can sustain the population’s needs (Sakai et al.,2017). Manufacturing plants generate waste, which sometimes, when improperly disposed of, harms the environment. In my community, I identified a manufacturing plant that generated a lot of waste than usual. This paper will identify what can be done to address the issue of plant waste by applying the concepts of operations management.
The facility is a bakery in the neighborhood. While interacting with the factory manager, I learned that the plant has been experiencing excess waste over the past few years. The manager indicated that the facility incurs more costs because of the excess wastage of raw materials. The facility needs more raw materials since the amount of wastage is high. If there was efficient use of resources, the facility could minimize its operational costs while increasing input. The plant does not operate on a top-notch efficiency. Further, the inability to minimize waste implies that a business is not environmentally conscious. Manufacturing facilities have the greatest responsibility in ensuring that their operations do not harm the environment. Indeed, most of the discarded materials from the facility are not recycled and hence end up in landfills, contributing to environmental degradation.
Working with the factory manager, I realized the bakery creates wastage because of the following reasons. Firstly, the facility lacks proper quality control in the entire process. It is common for defects to occur, and little is done to address the issues. Sometimes products deviate from customers’ expectations. The defective items need to be replaced, which further costs the facility money. Because of the failure to adhere to standards in manufacturing, the bakery has been losing clients to its competitors. Secondly, the facility experiences overproduction. Some components are produced before they are required in the next process. There is always excess work in progress in the facility. The move leads to staging, which necessitates the plant hiring more labor to move the excess work items in progress. Thirdly, the bakery has excess inventory. Because of poor planning and forecasting, there is inventory waste. There is a communication breakdown between manufacturing and scheduling. The various individuals involved in the chain do not coordinate properly; hence inventory is produced in excess. With the products perishable, the bakery ends up disposing of spoiled items. The facility then suffers heavy losses because of the unsold products.
Below is a flow chart demonstrating the problem and how to address it
1485900195580The whole workflow needs to be subjected to quality control. Ensure proper documentation and process standards00The whole workflow needs to be subjected to quality control. Ensure proper documentation and process standards52387504005580Ensure the efficiency of processes to keep all parts working00Ensure the effi...