Cooperative (NCC) faces two primary problems: (1) Trucks and drivers have to spend too much time waiting to unload process fruit into the receiving plant, and (2) Overtime costs are out of control. There is also a secondary problem: Half of the berries graded as top quality, and awarded a fifty cent premium per barrel (bbl.), are not top quality and do not deserve the premium. The NCC's approach to problem solving is to seek more than one cause, to seek alternative ways to alleviate the problems, and to seek numerical measures to evaluate the alternatives. It also emphasizes looking at the big picture. For example, one possible cause of the buildup, especially as seen by the truck drivers and those in the receiving area, is the limited number of Kiwanee dumpers. So, a fifth Kiwanee dumper was purchased for $75,000. But the analyses in this article reveal that, unless there were good other reasons for buying the additional dumper, the money could have been spent more wisely on other things. The emphasis of NCC's problem solving twenty to forty years ago was on systems. They have to understand how the whole system works, how each little piece affects everything else, before they run out and make the mistake of buying another dumper.
             The cranberry industry is characterized by growers joining together into various cooperatives, among which National Cranberry Cooperative (NCC) is one of the largest. A rapidly growing trend in the cranberry industry is that a greater percentage of berries are water harvested. The key business issue facing NCC is that its berry processing process had been getting backlogged, resulting in long waits for trucks to dump their cranberries at the receiving plant. The initial bottleneck was the drying process, which caused inventory to pile up and overflow into the storage bins. NCC thus had to pay drivers to wait around because there was no place for them to unload their berries. As a result, NCC co...