John Peter Koss

From an operations perspective, asset utilization is an ongoing operational challenge, especially in process industries like beverages, where constant product and packaging changes raise many questions related to invested assets.

Several significant factors actually drive the need for flexibility in beverage production line configurations so let’s take a closer look along the supply chain to discuss some of the impacts and the ever-present global concerns occurring regardless of the time or location of the market.

The production cost per case has to be important because, realistically, it becomes the basis for establishing selling prices further along in the costing process.

Beverage manufactures should consider the bottom line, production capability and capacity, and marketing plans and forecasts in order to drive success.

The process can be relatively simple or unnecessarily complex depending on which impacting factors have grown to become domineering and self-inflicting situation creators.

A good starting point for reviewing the SKU issue is to question why this universally used identification acronym is so important and where do problems in the supply chain exist?

Advancements in processing technology have improved quality, yields and much more.

From an operations perspective and engineering viewpoint, the traditional definition of training must be followed regardless of the application: instruction for task performance.

Observations in the marketplace and visits to several beverage facilities continue to present a broad and unprecedented array of beverage products to consumers.

Many high-priority tasks are present in the daily operations of beverage production or distribution facilities; therefore, the assets that are used to accomplish these tasks should be protected.