PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT REPORT

Blue Skies Ghana is one of many Blue Skies companies which is located at Doboro-Eastern

Region, Ghana. It is a food processing company that produce fresh cut fruits, fruit juice and ice

cream for both local and foreign consumers. Some of the foreign customers are John Sainsbury,

Tesco, Amazon, Delhaize, Albert heijn, Coop, ASDA, ALDI, Waitrose, Daily Mono, Betty, etc.

Blue Skies has expanded across Europe with its products but is yet to expand to America. At

blue skies Ghana, there a various department within the company and one of the many is the

production department.

The production department is where a lot of the processing takes place. The processes under

production can be summarized as: Supplier, Input, Processing, Output and Conveying, simply

termed as SIPOC. With each of the term mentioned earlier, there is/are unit(s) that handles the

process. The various units under production are as follows:

 Food Intake and Assessment Team (FIAT)/INTAKE

 Low Risk

 Pots and Trays Room

 Print Room

 High care

 Label

 Despatch

As mentioned earlier, each unit has its own purpose but they all work hand in hand to help the

production department achieve its goals and objectives. I visited all the units mentioned above

and below is what I observed, experienced and learned.

FOOD INTAKE AND ASSESSMENT TEAM/INTAKE

Food intake and assessment team, popularly known in Blue Skies as FIAT, is a unit under

production. What they do basically is take the fruits from the suppliers, assess it by checking the

quality of the fruits and then keep the fruits in chillers before conveying to low risk. They also do

sorting. The suppliers are those that provide Blue Skies with the raw materials(fruits). Some of

the suppliers are Jomoro, Abanga, Unifruits, Azey, Bartold, Billy, Lovely, Sam Valley, Cannan,

BS Senegal, etc. There is a technical department unit called Quality Assurance (QA) at FIAT and

intake that do the assessment. When the suppliers bring their produce, there is a document

attached which shows the quality of the fruits from the farm which has been approved by the

agronomist. Then the QA also do the same test to confirm what is on the document from the

farm or supplier. If the test matches then the fruits are accepted and given labels that have

information like supplier name, batch number, arrival date and weight. Afterwards, the fruits are

being kept in chillers, to slow the growth process, before being conveyed to low risk. The

maximum a fruit can be kept in chiller before conveying to high care is 6 days. After 6 days, the

QA has to check the quality of the fruit again to either reject or approve for production.

Intake unit do the same work as the FIAT just that they work with only pineapples. They receive

the pineapples because FIAT cannot hold all the fruits. They also do labelling – batch number,

arrival date, supplier name and weight. They do de-crowning of the pineapple. There are three

main types of pineapple that they receive. They are sugar loaf, MD2, and smooth cayenne.

LOW RISK
It is the center of production - it is where all the fruits pass for sanitization and other safety

checks before it is conveyed to high care. Low risk has its own safety and health procedures and

color code which is blue. Before entering into low risk, one has to be in the prescribed uniform,

which is a blue shirt and blue trouser, a nose mask and a hair net. Also, the person has to wear

jackets for protection against the cold. There is one main entrance into high care – for both males

and females. The entrance has a changing room where workers change into the prescribed

uniform before entering. There are boots hanged at each changing room with different sizes for

the workers to choose from. After wearing the boots, they wash their hands thoroughly with soap

under running water and wipe off the water with provided tissue before entering into the next

room. In the room, there are two rubber buckets – one contains clean coats while the other

contain dirty coats. They take a coat from the clean coats and wear it over their jackets. After,

they wear armlets over the coat on both hands and also wear disposable gloves. They also wear

aprons. After doing all these, they enter into low risk

The chemical used to sanitize the coconut is called perbac whereas the others are sanitized with

chlorine and citric acid. The machine they use to wash the fruits (except coconut and lime) is

called the Andy washer. The solution that the machine use to wash the fruits consist of 2400litres

of water, 720milliliters of chlorine and 360grams of citric acid. The concentration of the

chemicals used to sanitize the fruits is normally in the pH range of 6-7.

Although majority of the processing are done in high care, the processing of coconut takes place

at low risk. The process for the coconut is as follows:

1. Sawing - they cut(mark) the coconut shells with three cuts using the sawing machine
 2. Oven - they put the cut(marked) coconuts in the oven (under a temperature of 360

degrees Celsius for 10 minutes) for the following reasons:

 to kill microorganisms or bacteria

 to soften the shell for easy deshelling

3. Deshelling- removing the shells off the coconut fruit. It is done right after the oven

process

4. 4.Chunking- they cut the fruit into shapes based on the customer specifications

5. Sanitizing- they sanitize the fruits with perbac solution to kill bacteria and

microorganisms.

6. Critical Control Point (CCP) – checks whether there is still fragment of shells attach the

fruit.

7. Conveying to high care

The workers that do the deshelling are provided with knives, safety goggle, chain gloves and a

stick(beater). They use the knife to detach the shell from the coconut fruit. The chain gloves

protect the hand from cuts or injury. The beater is used when the deshelling of the coconut

becomes difficult with the knife. The safety goggle protects the eyes from fragments of shells.

The metal they use at low risk is stainless steel. Stainless steel because:

 It is corrosion resistance.

 Very good durability and heat resistance.

  Easy to clean and maintain

POTS AND TRAYS ROOM

Pots and trays is a unit under production that provide high care with the following items:

 Pots and Trays

Before pots or trays is issued into high care, there has to be a request from high care first.

The requester can mention either the dimension, weight, batch number or pot code of the

pot or tray. Every pot and tray have its own dimension, weight, batch number and pot

code. There is also type of pot for different customers and type of pot for different

products. As such, it is the duty of the pot room officials or leaders to know what type of

pots or trays to issue.

 Disposables

At pots and trays room they also issue disposables. Some of the disposables they issue are

face masks, hair nets, gloves (household and disposable), armlets, blue sacs and black

sacs. There is a difference between the blue sacs and black sacs which is:

The blue sac indicates that whatever is inside it can be reused whereas the black sac

indicates the whatever is inside it is waste.

 Daily Manufacturing Specification (DMS)

It is a document that creates a picture of what is to be produced. It contains all the

information about what is to be produced. Some of the information include the customer
 name, the date format (including shelve life), and customer specifications. Without DMS,

no product will be accepted to label and despatch.

 Films and Labels

The films are what they use to seal the pots and trays. Under films, we have pre-printed

and printed. Pre-printed films are the ones that are already printed by the customer while

the printed ones are done at the print room. Same goes for the label.

They acquire these items from the warehouse – a unit under logistics department.

PRINT ROOM

Print room is where labels are printed and issued. At print room, they have plain labels, top

labels, and base labels. The labels are arranged per customer names since each customer has his

own specifications. The software they use to design the labels is called Bartender. The printing

device they use is Toshiba or Ktech SX5. There are two Ktech SX5 printers in print room, one is

used for printing outer labels while the other print inner labels.

They print labels based on customer orders. The customer sends a forecast of the number of

products they will need for their next order. Upon receiving the pre-order, the print room team

print labels matching the order and then add excess to it. They print 20 excess for outer labels

and 10 excess for inner labels. The reason for the excess is that, most of the time, when the actual

order arrives it exceeds the forecasted order.

Some of the labels comes directly from the customer so all they have to add is the shelve life

(use by date). The “use by date” also varies among the customers. So, at Print room, they are

very date conscious.

HIGH CARE

It is where majority of the production work is done. High care has a very large room that

contains a lot of workers for different works. Just like low risk, before entering into low risk, one

has to be in the prescribed uniform, which is a blue shirt and blue trouser, a nose mask and a hair

net. Also, the person has to wear jackets for protection against the cold. High care has its own

safety and health procedures and color code which is red. There are two main entrance into high

care – one for males and the other for females. Each entrance has a changing room where

workers change into the prescribed uniform before entering. There are boots hanged at each

changing room with different sizes for the workers to choose from. After wearing the boots, they

wash their hands thoroughly with soap under running water and wipe off the water with provided

tissue before entering into the next room – a meeting point for both entrances. They repeat the

hand washing process after entering. In the room, there are two rubber buckets – one contains

clean coats while the other contain dirty coats. They take a coat from the clean coats and wear it

over their jackets. The next step is to repeat the hand washing process. After, they wear armlets

over the coat on both hands and also wear disposable gloves. They also wear apron. After doing

all these, they enter into high care and right after entering they sanitize their gloves before going

to their respective work stations.

Inside High Care, although they are all dressed almost the same, there are leaders. Among the

leaders, there are ranks which are differentiated by their hair nets. The top ranked leaders wear

yellow, the next after top ranked leaders wear purple while table leaders wear pink. It is the duty

of the leaders to supervise and ensure that the target of the day is achieved.
At high care, fruits are received from low risk after they have been washed and sanitize. Aside

coconut, the rest of the fruits are all peeled, chunked (based on customer specifications) washed

and sanitized at high care. Packing of all fruits into pots and trays are been done in high care

including coconut. After they have received the fruits from low risk, they pack it into pallets and

weigh the fruits before distributing it to either tables or belt for peeling and chunking. The

weighing of the fruits is done by the Production Data Analyst (PDA). If the work progress is

slow and the issuing of fruits into high care is fast, after weighing they keep the fruits in chillers

called work in progress (WIP). After chunking, they collect the chunks into pallets and weigh.

Some of the fruits (example: mango) are dipped into anti-browning solutions to prevent

browning. After, they send it to the packing team for packing into trays, pots and bags with the

right weight as requested by the customer. There are six lines in high care that are used to seal

the pots and trays. Some are fully automated but others too are semi-automated. All the lines

have a critical control point (CCP) that is a metal detector. Before they begin to work with the

lines, the engineers test the efficiency of the metal detector by placing into sealed pots and trays

three different type of metals. These metals are ferrous, non-ferrous and transparent metals. All

sealed fruits that pass through the metal detector heads to the label room for labelling.

The work of the production data analyst (PDA) is to calculate the kilo per person per hour

(KPH). KPH is the amount of work performed by the average worker in one hour. For example,

after weighing the chunked fruits for an hour, the PDA adds all the weights recorded within the

hour and term it as output. Afterwards, the PDA goes round and count the number of workers

that worked on that particular output and record the number. The KPH is calculated as the output

divided by the total number of workers multiplied by 1hour. The importance of the KPH is that,
it helps in the estimation of the total amount of uninterrupted labor (thus excluding breaks)

required to perform a particular task. The PDA also fills the daily manufacturing specifications.

There is also a unit called arisings. Arisings is where over ripened fruits are sent for squeezing

for juice production. Thus, arisings work hand in hand with the juice factory. The machine they

use to squeeze the fruits is called destoner. After squeezing, they store it in bags with a weight of

5kg and store it in a chiller. They convey the squeezed fruit (puree) from the chiller through to

dispatch room and from there to the juice factory.

The washing of trays and pallets used in high care are done in the wash area. The washing has

four stages. The first step is the pre-rinse, next is wash, followed by rinse and finally, sanitize.

Some of the chemicals they use for washing are active and chlorfoam. There are also cleaners

that sweep and clean the production floor to avoid slips. There is also a waste area where all the

waste is been sent.

LABEL ROOM

This is where labels are placed on pots and trays based on customer specifications. They take the

labels from print room and check whether what is on the label is right before using them. The

exit of all the six lines in high care is at label. After placing the labels and ensuring that it meets

the customers specification, they pack it into pallets and store them in blast chillers to attain a

degree of 5 Celsius or below before.

The updaters are stationed at label room. It is their work to ensure that customers orders have

been met and also the right label has been attached to the products.

DESPATCH
The first room after entering dispatch is the packaging room. The packaging room is where the

labelled pots, trays or bags, after attaining a temperature of 5°C or below, are sent for packing.

Before the products are released from the blast chiller to the packaging room, a release officer

has to approve. The release officers monitor the temperature of the blast chillers. They also label

the cases in which the products are being packed. At the packaging room, there are QA officers.

The QA officers inspects the label by the checking the position where the label is placed and that

the label is for the right customer. They also do seal inspection for leakages.

After the packaging and inspection, the packed cases are kept in numbered batches and packed

into AKEs. AKE is a freight container used by airlines to transport cargo. They line the AKEs

with Styrofoam pads and reflective lining. Also, gels are packed into cases and placed at vantage

points in the container. They do all these to help maintain the temperature within the container

by insulating it from heat loss. Among all the production units, despatch room is the coldest.

This is because they want the AKEs to be cold until they are ready into trucks and conveyed to

the airport. There are rollers on the floor in dispatch to aid in the movement of the AKEs. The

trucks in which the containers are being loaded into have thermostats that help to maintain the

temperature at 5°C or below. There are also temperature loggers (templog) placed in the

containers as it departs for its final destination to keep records of the temperature along the way.