MORTON SALT
Introduction
Morton Salt is a subsidiary of Morton International, a manufacturer of specialty chemicals, air bags, and salt products. The Morton salt-processing facility in Silver Springs, New York, between Buffalo and Rochester, is one of six similar Morton salt-processing facilities in the United States. The Silver Springs plant employs about 200 people, ranging from unskilled to skilled. It produces salt products for water conditioning, grocery, industrial, and agricultural markets. The grocery business consists of 26-oz. round cans of iodized salt. Although the grocery business represents a relatively small portion of the total output (approximately 15 percent), it is the most profitable.
Salt production
The basic raw material, salt, is obtained by injecting water into salt caverns that are located some 2,400 feet below the surface. There, the salt deposits dissolve in the water. The resulting brine is pumped to the surface where it is converted into salt crystals. The brine is boiled, and much of the liquid evaporates, leaving salt crystals and some residual moisture, which is removed in a drying process. This process is run continuously for about six weeks at a time. Initially, salt is produced at the rate of 45 tons per hour. But the rate of output decreases due to scale buildup, so that by the sixth week, output is only 75 percent of the initial rate. At that point, the process is halted to perform maintenance on the equipment and remove the scale, after which salt production resumes.
The salt is stored in silos until it is needed for production, or it is needed for production, or it is shipped in bulk to industrial customers. Conveyors move the salt to each of the four dedicated production areas, one of which is round can production (see diagram.). The discussion here focuses exclusively on round can production.
Round Can Production
Annual round can production averages roughly 3.8 million cans. Approximately 70 percent of the output is for the Morton label, and the rest is for private label. There are two parallel, high-speed production lines. The lines share common processes at the beginning of the lines, and then branch out into two identical lines. Each line is capable of producing 9,600 cans per hour (160 cans per minute). The equipment is not flexible, so the production rate is fixed. The operations are completely standardized; the only variable is the brand label that is applied. One line requires 12 production workers, while both lines together can be operated by 18 workers because of the common processes. Workers on the line perform low-skilled, repetitive tasks.
The plant produces both the salt and the cans the salt is packaged in. The cans are essentially a cylinder with a top and a bottom; they are made of cardboard, except for a plastic pour spout in the top. The cylinder portion is formed from two sheets of chip board that are glued together and then rolled into a continuous tube. The glue not only binds the material, it also provides a moisture barrier. The tube is cut in a two-step process. It is first cut into long sections, and those sections are then cut into can-size pieces. The top and bottom pieces for the cans are punched from a continuous strip of cardboard. The separate pieces move along conveyor belts to the lines where the components are assembled into cans and glued. The cans are then filled with salt and the pour spout is added. Finally, the cans are loaded onto pallets and placed into inventory, ready to be shipped to distributors.
Quality
Quality is checked at several points in the production process. Initially, the salt is checked for purity when it is obtained from the wells, Iodine and an anti-caking compound are added to the salt, and their levels are verified using chemical analysis. Crystal size is important. In order to achieve the desired size and to remove lumps, the salt is forced through a scraping screen, which can cause very fine pieces of metal to mix with the salt. However, these pieces are effectively removed by magnets that are placed at appropriate points in the process. If, for any reason, the salt is judged to be contaminated, it is diverted to a nonfood product.
Checking the quality of the cans is done primarily by visual inspection, including verifying the assembly operation is correct, checking filed cans for correct weight, inspecting cans to see that labels are labels are properly aligned, and checking to see that plastic pour spouts are correctly attached.
The equipment on the production line is sensitive to misshapen or damaged cans, and frequently jams, cussing production delays. This greatly reduces the chance of a defective can getting through the process, but it reduces productivity, and the salt in the defective cans must be scrapped. The cost of quality is fairly high, owing to the amount of product that is scrapped, the large number of inspectors, and the extensive laboratory testing that is needed.
Production Planning and Inventory
The plant can sell all of the salt it produces. The job of the production
Equipment Maintenance and Repair
The equipment is 1950s vintage, and it requires a fair amount of maintenance to keep it in good working order. Even so, breakdowns occur as parts wear out. The plant has its own tool shop where skilled workers repair parts or make new parts because replacement parts are no longer available for the old equipment.
3. What are some of the possible reasons why the company continues to use the old processing equipment instead of buying new, more modern equipment?
Want to see the full answer?
Check out a sample textbook solutionChapter 6 Solutions
Loose-leaf for Operations Management (The Mcgraw-hill Series in Operations and Decision Sciences)
- Define supply chain management, and explain its strategicimportance.arrow_forwardWarehouse: 2.Identify the major role of stores management to economic development.arrow_forwardThe Golden Gate Company had the following Sales and Expenses during its first year of operations: Freight in $30,000 Purchases $75,000 Advertising $35,000 Salaries-Sales staff $90,000 Sales $280,000 Property Taxes - Store $10,500 Insurance - Store $8,000 $55,000 Merchandise Inventory, yearend Given the above information, determine Golden Gate's gross margin for the year. Note that since this was the company's first year of operations, beginning inventory was zero.arrow_forward
- Al - Rafa traders is a wholesale business unit based in Nizwa region of the Sultanate of Oman. The company is dealing with stationery items plus fruits and vegetables. The business has a separate stores department which maintains a full-fledged stores register which will be updated on a day to day basis with all the stock movements. At the end of the previous month, the company management has called for a strategic meeting to discuss the future plans to improve the market performance. One of the partner has raised his concern about the increasing total cost of the business and he suggested to use any appropriate Inventory control technique to reduce the overall cost of the company. The management accountant is considering to implement EOQ purchase in Al - Rafa to reduce the overall cost of the company. According to you which among the following is not true about Economic Order Quantity? Annual demand is required to calculate EOQ Holding cost for the total units is used in the…arrow_forwardSmall Potatoes is a family-operated seed business that has grown rapidly. Small Potatoes specializes in supplying home gardeners with the finest seeds and gardening supplies. Until now, the firm has done all its business by placing ads in gardening and health magazines, and taking orders using a toll-free telephone number. Now, the family has decided to establish a website and sell online, but there is some disagreement about the best way to proceed. Some say it would be better to develop the site on their own, and Betty Lou Jones, a recent computer science graduate, believes she can handle the task. Others, including Sam Jones, Betty’s grandfather, feel it would be better to outsource the site and focus on the business itself. Suppose the family asked for your opinion. What approach would you take? What additional questions would you ask? Does this appear to identify diversity, equity and inclusion?arrow_forwardSmall Potatoes is a family-operated seed business that has grown rapidly. Small Potatoes specializes in supplying home gardeners with the finest seeds and gardening supplies. Until now, the firm has done all its business by placing ads in gardening and health magazines, and taking orders using a toll-free telephone number. Now, the family has decided to establish a website and sell online, but there is some disagreement about the best way to proceed. Some say it would be better to develop the site on their own, and Betty Lou Jones, a recent computer science graduate, believes she can handle the task. Others, including Sam Jones, Betty’s grandfather, feel it would be better to outsource the site and focus on the business itself. Suppose the family asked for your opinion. What would you say? What additional questions would you ask?arrow_forward
- 1. Read each of the following statements and determine which method of transportation is the best option. Provide a reason for your choice. Oil shipping from an oil field in Oklahoma to a refinery in Houston, Texas. a. b. Corn transported from a farm to a local grain elevator. C. Farm equipment manufactured in Canada transported to a warehouse in Wisconsin. d. Cut flowers sent from Hawaii to California.arrow_forwardExplain the importance of warehouses to Garden-Williams Logistics. Explain which type of warehouse Garden-Williams Logistics should make use of. Justify your answer. Identify criteria you believe is important regarding the location of a warehouse and relate it to Garden-Williams Logistics. Determine what type of warehouse activities will be conducted in your chose type of warehouse. Provide an argument indicating whether you will include a warehouse management system.arrow_forwardNAKASSAJJA CERAMICS AND TILES LTD. Nakassajja Tiles and Ceramics Ltd. (NCTL), a fairly young firm in Jinja Uganda, faces rapidly changing markets and increasing competition, Jinja is famous for its hand-painted tiles, mostly in different shades of blue. The region’s special clay has enabled to produce long-lasting quality tiles over the centuries. Modern methods of production are new to the industry in Jinja. NCTL, is regarded as the largest and most modern domestic producer. However, as a manufacturer for the international market, it is considered to be in its infancy and in need of technical and management knowhow. Current production comprises ceramic tiles for walls, flooring and decorative purposes. The company is considering entry into the export trade and diversifying into sanitary ware and tableware. Its managing director is an experienced retailer of tiles and sanitary ware. Tableware, a product line unrelated to the construction industry, will require separate construction…arrow_forward
- Explain in detail the core opreations of port warehouses.arrow_forwardFrank Johnson was outbound logistics manager for sudsy Soap.Inc. He had held the job for the past five years and had just about every distribution function well under control. His task was made easier because shipping patterns and volumes were unchanging routines. The firm’s management boasted that it had a steady share in “a stable market” although a few stock holders grumbled that sudsy soap had a declining share in a growing market. The sudsy soap plant was in Akron, Ohio. It routinely produced 100,000 (1.5 Kg) cartons of powdered dish soap each week each carton measured about 16 cm ,and each working day 15 to 20 railcar loads were loaded and shipped to various food chain warehouses and to a few large grocery brokers. Johnson worked with the marketing staff to establish prices , so nearly all soap was purchased in railcar –load lots .shipments less than a full carload did not occur very often . Buyers relied on dependable deliveries and the average length of time it took for a…arrow_forwardSubject: Logistics and Supply Chain Managementarrow_forward
- Purchasing and Supply Chain ManagementOperations ManagementISBN:9781285869681Author:Robert M. Monczka, Robert B. Handfield, Larry C. Giunipero, James L. PattersonPublisher:Cengage Learning