13. TASTY TAKES BAKERY
Tasty Takes Bakery makes three types of cake: brownies, muffins and cupcakes. The costs, revenues and demand for each of the three cakes are as follows:
Brownies Muffins Cupcakes
Batch size (units) 40 30 20
Selling price ($ per unit) 1.50 1.40 2.00
Material cost ($ per unit) 0.25 0.15 0.25
Labour cost ($ per unit) 0.40 0.45 0.50
Overheads ($ per unit) 0.15 0.20 0.30
Minimum daily demand (units) 30 20 10
Maximum daily demand (units) 140 90 100
The minimum daily demand is required for a long-term contract with a local café and must be met.
The cakes are made in batches using three sequential processes: weighing, mixing and baking. The products must be produced in their batch sizes but are sold as individual units. Each batch of cakes requires the following amount of time for each process:
Brownies Muffins Cupcakes
Weighing (minutes) 15 15 20
Mixing (minutes) 20 16 12
Baking (minutes) 120 110 120
The baking stage of the process is done in three ovens which can each be used for eight hours a day, a total of 1,440 available minutes. Ovens have a capacity of one batch per bake, regardless of product type.
Tasty Takes Bakery uses throughput accounting and considers all costs, other than material, to be ‘factory costs’ which do not vary with production.
I. On Monday, in addition to the baking ovens, Tasty Takes Bakery has the following process resources available:
Process Minutes available
Weighing 240
Mixing 180
Which of the three processes, if any, is a bottleneck activity?