5. Design production schedules to accommodate demand from retailers and customers for more than three flavored cheeses per season.

As described above approximately 50% of retailer demand is for the "mild Colby" variety, with the remaining 50% of demand assumed to be split equally among the variety of five seasonal flavored cheeses. He current production schedule for only five seasonal flavored cheeses looks like this below, but some retail customers cannot get the specific flavor varieties that they want:

MON TUES WEDS THURS FRI SAT

Week #1 Mild Colby Flavor 1 Mild Colby Flavor 2 Mild Colby Flavor 3

Week #2 Mild Colby Flavor 4 Mild Colby Flavor 5 Mild Colby Flavor 1

Week #3 Mild Colby Flavor 2 Mild Colby Flavor 3 Mild Colby Flavor 4

Week #4 Mild Colby Flavor 5 Mild Colby Flavor 1 Mild Colby Flavor 2

Production

Crowley Cheese would like to be able to offer a greater variety of its seasonal flavored cheeses at any time.

oFor the current one-shift schedule (one batch per day), use lean systems concepts, (including but not limited to Heijunka and mixed-model assembly), to develop a rotating monthly (four week) production schedule for seven seasonal flavored cheeses.

oHow many weeks of production need to be planned, to have a production schedule that produces equal amounts of each of seven seasonal flavors?

For a two-shift (two batches per day) schedule, use lean systems concepts to develop a rotating monthly (four week) production schedule for seven seasonal flavored cheeses.

For a five-batch per day schedule (potentially at a new manufacturing facility), use lean systems concepts to develop a rotating weekly (four-week) production schedule for seven seasonal flavored cheeses.

For any proposed production schedule, assume that the objective is to minimize excess inventory and balance supply with demand as best possible.