Tag

value management

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Cold Storage Warehouse Automation: 6 Money-Saving Benefits Beyond Labor Costs

Automation is on the rise in industrial facilities, food processing plants and cold storage warehouses. At Stellar, we’ve seen more client requests for automation in the past year than ever before.

When people think of automation and cost savings, the obvious usually comes to mind first: labor costs. Projected minimum wage increases and the scarcity of people willing to work in a cold storage environment are driving more owners to invest in automation.

But automating your warehouse can yield more savings beyond just the payroll. Here are six more benefits that you may not have considered.

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5 Budget Factors to Consider When Designing Cold Storage Warehouses

The need for cold storage facilities is greater than ever. Product integrity and fresh products are in demand as Millennials become major players in the consumer market. This generation of buyers favor healthier, fresher and higher quality products that have a shorter shelf life — meaning an efficient distribution network is crucial to serve these consumers.

But how can you design your warehouse cost-effectively?

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6 Essential Qualities to Look for in a Strategic Planning Consultant

A strategic plan is a roadmap that defines the future of your business. That roadmap is crucial to your company’s success down the road, but creating one is a heavy undertaking. Food processors are already pressed for time with day-to-day tasks, and dedicating time and resources to plan for the future may not be feasible.

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Strategic Planning for Food Processors: 4 Elements Your Business Plan Must Address

Does your food processing company have a strategic plan? Failing to plan is planning to fail—especially when it comes to your business. Earlier this year, Stellar hosted the Food Engineering webinar, 3 Key Elements in a Successful Strategic Plan for Growth. That webinar is now available on-demand, so you can still catch up on our discussion about how strategic planning can benefit food manufacturing plants, and how you can get started with developing your own strategic plan.

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3 Key Areas to Examine in Your Manufacturing Analysis

What’s the best way to remain competitive in the food processing industry today? A strategic plan. It equips your business with the knowledge, tools and strategies necessary to evolve and adapt to changing marketing conditions and consumer demands. In fact, we’ll be hosting a Food Engineering webinar June 23, 3 Key Elements in a Successful Strategic Plan for Growth to dive into strategic plans even further. Last week, we discussed the first step in developing a strategic plan: developing a business plan. This week, we’ll discuss step two: conducting a manufacturing analysis.

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[Infographic] 5 Important Factors for Selecting a Site for Your New Food Plant

When choosing the ideal site for your new food plant, your decision should always tie back to a single question: How will this site help my business thrive? Build a sound business plan around the type and quantity of goods your facility will produce, and use that plan to guide you through your site selection. You’ll need to address several factors throughout your search, most of important of which are the five core factors illustrated in the infographic below:

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6 Elements of a Thorough Situation Analysis

A manufacturing analysis is the portion of a strategic plan that focuses on all the processes and materials related to manufacturing. A situation analysis is a major focus of the manufacturing analysis, serving as an in-depth look at the physical layout of the facility. The goal of situation analysis is to ensure that the technology and strategy you plan to implement are feasible in the physical space of your facility.

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Food Processing Plant Site Due Diligence: Soft Costs to Expect

Before selecting a site for your food processing plant, are you sure you’re accounting for all of the costs involved? In our last post, we outlined some key considerations for building a better greenfield budget. Here, I dive in deeper with the often forgotten soft costs, or fees that fall outside the realm of direct construction costs. These include pre-construction permits, impact fees and utility connection fees. To help you with your site due diligence, be sure to account for these soft costs commonly associated with new facility sites.

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How to Build a Better Capital Budget for Your Food Processing Plant

‘Tis the season to … piece together your capital budget for the new year. When estimating your numbers for food processing projects on the horizon, don’t just base your predictions on what you did the last time around. You shouldn’t be estimating costs based solely on square footage, either. However, there are ways to build a higher confidence level behind your budget and ensure its accuracy—it all lies within the data. Continue Reading “How to Build a Better Capital Budget for Your Food Processing Plant”