Pickwick Paper Company's Richmond plant manufactures paperboard. Its production process involves the following operations.

1. Harvested trees arrive by rail in the wood yard and are stored outside.

2. Logs are moved by a flume into the plant where they pass through a debarker and are cut up into chips.

3. The chips are stored in large bins near the chipping machines.

4. The chips then are transported by small trucks to another building and are placed in a digester, a large pressure cooker where heat, steam, and chemicals convert the chips into moist fibers.

5. The fibers are stored near the digester.

6. In the next step, the fibers are loaded by workers onto a conveyor belt, which carries the libers to a depressurized blow tank. This operation separates the fibers.
7. The separated fibers are placed on wooden pallets and stored next to the blow tank.
8. Forklifts are used to carry the separated fibers to the refining area, where the fibers are washed, refined, and treated with chemicals and caustic substances until they become pulp.
9. The wood pulp then enters the paper machines through a headbox, which distributes pulp evenly across a porous belt of forming fabric.
10. Water is removed from the pulp by passing it over a wire screen.
11. Additional water is removed from the pulp in a series of presses.
12. Dryers then remove any remaining water from the pulp.
13. The thin, dry sheets of pulp are then smoothed and polished by large rollers called calenders.
14. Then the paperboard is wound into large rolls, and workers place the rolls on wooden pallets.
15. Forklifts are used to move the rolls of paperboard to the labeling building.
16. There the rolls are labeled and stored for shipment.
17. The rolls of paperboard are shipped to customers from the loading dock in the labeling building.

The partially processed product sometimes is stored between production operations for two to three days. This delay can be caused either by a faster production rate in the earlier processes than in the later processes or by breakdowns in the production machinery. The Richmond plant's average cycle time is about 15 days.

Required: 

Your consulting firm has been hired to advise Pickwick Paper's management on how to improve its production process.

1. Diagram the current production process.
2. Point out areas that you believe to be candidates for non-value-added activities.
3. Prepare a plan for Pickwick to change its production process to a JIT process. Include a diagram of your suggested process. The company is not in a position to buy new production machinery, but management will consider purchasing an AMHS. The plant currently operates in three buildings, which are not far apart. Management is willing to consider minor construction to connect the buildings.