Research Paper: Optimizing Facilities, Time, and Productivity in an Innovative Small Business located in Puerto Rico

For my course of Facilities Planning & Design Project, I took the opportunity to help small businesses grow while innovating at the same time. As Engineering students, we are accustomed to work alongside big manufacturing companies when it comes to investigations. Having a small business myself, I reached out to colleagues who are talented small business owners. For insights, we are talking about an all-vegan ice cream brand based in Puerto Rico. They are known for their wide variety of flavors and excellent service. When we had our first meeting, they presented me with their short and long-term goals. Including saving money, opening more space for production, and selling wholesale. I saw an astounding opportunity for a Facilities Planning & Design Project. We went through the DEFINE / MEASURE phase conducting a time study in the facility and then establishing our root causes for downtime. The Vía Láctea company wants to reduce the cost of pints by 5%. To preserve the quality of ingredients, we will be carrying out a rearrangement of the facility. We need to increase productivity (ice cream pints produced per hour) in the process, going from 47% to 70% efficiency. At the end of my research, I met with both owners / executive chefs, I shared my time study analysis results along with possible improvements. The team is willing to make the investments that will allow them to take their production to the big leagues. We discussed opportunities for new achievements like Walk-in-freezers and new locations.