The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Operational decision · 1999–2002
Chipita put a buffer-refrigerator in its croissant line to lift efficiency from 86% to 98%
Failures stalled Chipita's croissant lines; a 40,000-croissant buffer decoupled the stages, lifting efficiency toward 98% and adding $19K a week.
Chipita International
The solution
Chipita International, one of Greece's largest bakery and snack makers, faced rising croissant demand at its Lamia plant. A typical processing line ran at only 86 percent efficiency because equipment failures stopped the entire line.
Rather than buying a new line, the project proposed inserting an in-process buffer-refrigerator with capacity for 40,000 croissants in the middle of the line and speeding up the part upstream of the buffer.
The modified design was projected to reach just under 98 percent efficiency for a minor increase in in-process inventory, adding an estimated $19,150 per week from extra output, the elimination of the first shift of the week, and less scrapped material during long failures.
Why it worked
- A buffer converts whole-line failures into local ones
- Speeding the upstream stage kept the buffer fed
- Small in-process inventory bought most of the gain
- The fix reused existing equipment instead of new capacity
What can be applied
When breakdowns cost throughput, separate the fragile stages: a buffer between them converts stoppages from line-wide halts into local ones, often for the price of a little in-process inventory.
Aftermath
The study became a compact teaching case in line-design simulation: measured failure data, a simple structural fix, and a quantified weekly gain.
Sources
- Systems Analysis Speeds Up Chipita's Food-Processing Line
- Systems Analysis Speeds Up Chipita's Food-Processing Line (abstract)
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