01.15“Operations Management” Class Visits Amalgamated Sugar
Students from Professor Dick Van Schyndel’s Operations Management class toured the Amalgamated Sugar factory in Nampa today. The exchange students from Korea also toured the factory, for a total entourage of 45 students and faculty.
The Nampa facility is one of four Amalgamated Sugar factories, contributing to an annual economic impact of $1.1 billion in Idaho. Amalgamated has a “combined capacity to process over 40,000 tons of sugarbeets each day of their 155 day average campaign, operating 24/7 from mid-September until late February or early March.”1 The plant is powered by steam, generated by state-of-the-art boilers that also generate 9.7 megawatts of electricity – enough to power all the residents in Nampa. This company “has grown into one of the premier beet sugar companies in the United States, purchasing approximately 6 million tons of sugarbeets each year, from which over 1.7 billion pounds of sugar are produced accounting for about 10% of the sugar production in the United States.” 1
Due to a short harvest, the students were not able to observe the initial processing of the sugar beets. However, students were shown stored juices from previously processed beets being boiled and crystallized. Students watched the crystals being centrifuged and cleaned, packaged with multiple brand names, and prepared for shipping.
This tour was the eighth time Professor Van Schyndel has taken a class to tour Amalgamated Sugar. Additional class tours to other local businesses are scheduled including Motive Power, Atlas Pallets, Pacific Press, and Nagel Beverages Bottling Plant. Professor Van Schyndel notes, “The tours are a primary tool in teaching Operations Management. They make the textbooks come alive for students who have little exposure to production facilities and processes.”
1. Quotes from company literature. Learn more about Amalgamated Sugar at http://www.amalgamatedsugar.com/