(Courtenay Boatman, Carlos Smith, 1988)
Intermex Products is a food products distributing company in Arlington, Texas, that works with the largest food and fruit cannery in Mexico, known as La Torre Products. Intermex was interested in doing a feasibility study on the possibility of putting up a pineapple processing plant in the Dominican Republic. The company already has several contacts with producers in the area, and it is definitely possible to do this from their standpoint if the study proves to be economically feasible. The study includes doing all the appropriate research on the machinery involved in the processing system, studying the several product combinations which could be produced at maximum efficiency and production levels, and marketing analysis.
We have focused our analysis on the backbone of the whole study - the machinery analysis in terms of prices and production rates. There is a possibility of completely modernizing the facility or taking a more conservative approach by using old equipment requiring some rebuilding. What follows is a description of the focus of our project.
This is a capital investment analysis of the machinery involved in the processing of pineapple products. The project analyzed the pineapple processing line and determined what the essential machines are. Each machine must be analyzed in terms of being new or old and their respective outputs. The goal is to come up with the best combination of machinery that will provide the maximum output keeping in mind all corresponding costs. Presented is the combination of machines that we feel is optimal and will produce a certain output within an eight hour shift, at a specific cost.