Considerations regarding logistical issues in a company producing short shelf-life products will be based, as in our previous publication on this topic, on the example of the bakery industry.
Bakery enterprises are very diverse in terms of size, legal form of ownership, and asset value. They include both small, single-plant bakeries with a production capacity of 1-2 tons of bread per day, which are family-owned, as well as single- or multi-plant enterprises with a production capacity ranging from a dozen to several dozen tons, operating as civil partnerships, general partnerships, limited liability companies, or cooperatives. The largest units are large limited liability companies or consumer cooperatives, and their production capacity is measured in hundreds of tons of bread per day.
A significant logistical problem is adjusting production capacity to the size of the product market, which means making a decision regarding both the size of the plant and its location. The accuracy of this decision can determine the transport costs of bread and the degree of capacity utilization, which strongly influences the company’s fixed costs. When determining the projected demand for bread, one should take into account not only the number of people living in the bakery’s area of operation and its age structure, but also the occupational structure. The consumption of bakery products in Poland varies across different professional groups. On average, it is about 270 g per day. When determining the production capacity of a bakery, a reserve should be included to meet the increased demand for bread on pre-holiday days and to fulfill orders increased for other reasons.
Currently, for the bakery industry as a whole, a significant surplus of production capacity is characteristic. It arose as a result of a simultaneous decrease in the demand for bread (reduction of bread waste in households after a decrease in the standard of living of a significant part of society) and the spontaneous emergence of many new, private bakeries. Large plants, burdened with significant fixed costs, with low utilization of production potential, try to increase the number of customers, or at least not decrease it, even if this leads to an increase in logistics costs. The main place where these costs arise in the bakery industry is the logistics system of bread distribution. The material supply system of the bakery has a lesser impact on logistics costs.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 4/2003.