Chapter 5 DIRECT LABOUR

The throughput of the plant, the kind of equipment installed, the organization of work, the efficiency of its execution and, finally, the discipline of the staff are factors affecting the amount of labour required for packaging liquid milk. An attempt has been made to choose uniform levels of organization and efficiency in order to arrive at comparable data. Those chosen are not necessarily the most effective as allowance has been made to take account of the difficulties in obtaining the required skills at both managerial and professional levels in developing countries. On the other hand overmanning caused by general unemployment in an area has been excluded.

Table 11 shows the incidence of labour requirements for liquid milk packaging which, for this purpose, is divided into seven sections.

Table 11 Incidence of labour requirements for packaging


	Returnable containers			Single-Service Containers			Bulk Vending Machines
	Glass Bottles		Cans	Cartons		Plastic Sachets
	Pasteur.	Steriliz.	Pasteur.	Pasteur.	UHT	Pasteur.
1. Special Heat Treatment	0	+	0	0	+	0	0
2. Unloading of empties	+	+	+	+	0	+	0
3. Decrating/washing of empties	+	+	+	+	0	+	0
4. Filling	+	+	+	+	+	+	0
5. Crating/wrapping of filled containers	+	+	0	+	+	+	0
6. Product store operations	+	+	+	+	+	+	0
7. Product dispatch	+	+	+	+	+	+	+

0 - not applicable
+ - applicable

Note Operation 2 and 3 for pasteurized milk in cartons and sachets apply only to crates

Table 12 shows the total labour requirements expressed in man-hours per day and the specific labour requirements in man-hours per 1 000 litres. The figures have been calculated with the following assumptions:

The number of shifts in any section depends basically on the operation time of the packaging machines and the timing of transport.
Except for some lower capacities, the majority of plants have a nominal operation time (t_f) for the packaging machines longer than five hours, i.e. a total working time longer than eight hours. Whenever t_f was longer than five, the full two-shift (16 hours) working time of this and of the dependent sections has been calculated.
The number of posts is considered as the decisive factor in calculating the labour. Even in instances where only part-time employment was required for a post, a full shift (shifts) labour requirement has been calculated.
For loading and unloading, the labour requirements shown exclude loading/unloading work on the platforms of the transport vehicles (see Chapter 6).
In cases where the same staff operates in two sections (as is the case for some systems with crating/wrapping of filled containers and adjacent store operations), the required labour was attributed in total to one section.

The labour requirements shown in Table 12 appear rather high compared with what is achieved in milk plants in countries having a long tradition in industrialized dairying, but in developing countries many milk plants may find the figures low. However, they have been estimated as a compromise which, it is believed, affects uniformly the various milk packaging and distribution systems considered, thus permitting valid comparisons. The comparisons of specific labour requirements are presented graphically in Fig. 45.

Table 12 Direct labour requirement - man-hours

RETURNABLE CONTAINERS	GLASS BOTTLES - 1/2 LITRE										MILK CANS - 40 LITRES
RETURNABLE CONTAINERS	Pasteurized					Sterilized					Pasteurized
Plant throughput 000 1/day	10	25	50	100	250	10	25	50	100	250	10	25	50	100	250
Special heat treatment	-	-	-	-	-	16	32	48	48	96	-	-	-	-	-
Unloading of empties	16	24	80	128	192	32	48	80	128	192	16	16	16	32	64
Decrating, washing of empties	32	48	96	192	96	32	48	96	192	96	32	32	48	64	96
Filling	16	48	32	64	64	16	32	48	64	96	16	32	48	48	96
Crating	16	48	32	64	64	16	32	48	64	96	-	-	-	-	-
Product store operations	32	48	80	128	256	32	48	80	128	256	8	16	16	32	32
Product dispatch	32	48	64	128	320	32	32	64	128	320	16	24	32	64	128
Total man-hours per day	144	264	384	604	992	176	272	416	752	1152	88	120	160	240	416
Specific requirement man-hours/1000 1	14.4	10.6	7.7	6.0	4.0	17.6	10.7	8.3	7.5	4.6	8.8	4.8	3.2	2.4	1.7

SINGLE-SERVICE CONTAINERS	CARTONS -1/2 LITRE										PLASTIC SACHETS - 1/2 LITRE
	Pasteurized in returnable crates					UHT-aseptic in non-returnable wraps					Pasteurized in returnable crates
	10	25	50	100	250	10	25	50	100	250	10	25	50	100	250
Special heat treatment	-	-	-	-	-	16	32	32	32	32	-	-	-	-	-
Unloading of empties	16	32	48	64	128	-	-	-	-	-	16	32	48	64	128
Decrating, washing of empties	16	32	32	32	64	-	-	-	-	-	16	32	32	32	64
Filling	8	32	48	96	224	8	32	48	96	224	8	32	48	96	224
Crating, wrapping of filled containers	8	32	48	96	224	48	96	160	288	656	8	32	48	96	224
Product store operations	16	32	64	128	240	48	96	160	288	656	16	32	64	128	240
Product dispatch	16	32	48	64	128	16	24	32	48	80	16	32	48	64	128
Total man-hours per day	80	192	288	480	1008	88	184	272	464	992	80	192	288	480	1008
Specific requirement man - hours/1000 1	8.0	7.7	5.7	4.8	4.0	8.8	7.2	5.4	4.6	4.0	8.0	7.7	5.7	4.8	4.0

SALES THROUGH VENDING MACHINES

Product dispatch	16	32	48	64	120
Total man-hours per day	16	32	48	0.6	120
Specific requirement man - hours/1000 1	1.6	1.3	1.0	0.6	0.5

Fig. 45 Specific labour requirements