Day 105 - 16 Mar 95 - Page 15
1 A. Yes -----
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you know whether that is so or not?
4 A. I know that Jarretts work to the capacity their plant
5 will allow them to work to.
6
7 Q. So they are not short of business, as it were?
8 A. They are not, in general terms, short of business.
9 They are a successful company, to the best of my knowledge,
10 and if the production fills up their capacity, they cannot
11 carry on any more production.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You have answered my question.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: Working to capacity would be one of the things they
16 would ask a consultant about, would it: "Do you think we
17 could get another 100 through a week without affecting
18 standards?"
19 A. They did not ask me that question and would not
20 necessarily do so.
21
22 Q. So the figure of 400 to 500, is that a figure given to you
23 by the company or something you have seen?
24 A. The figure I have been given by the company in the
25 course of my enquiries as to which is the first question
26 one asks: What is your throughput, that is in general
27 terms and that is particularised later on, so the overall
28 throughput would be 800 units a week divided between sheep
29 and cattle.
30
31 Q. Yes I am concentrating on cattle. The speed of the line
32 and the throughput units are quite important criteria, are
33 they not?
34 A. In what respect?
35
36 Q. For a start, it is important to know whether you are going
37 above capacity at any one time and, as it is a complex
38 operation with a number of different parts of the
39 procedure, if any one gets choc-a-bloc, or whatever, it is
40 that is going to affect the entire procedure, would you not
41 say so?
42 A. Not if the control points which have been built into
43 the system are correctly implemented, self-regulating to
44 that extent.
45
46 Q. So are you saying that, in your professional opinion, the
47 monitoring of the throughput capacity and speed of the line
48 is not something that would be of continuous educational
49 benefit in an abattoir?
50 A. The effects of log jams in production, of excessive
51 production, would show themselves, and non-implementation
52 of whatever control is necessary, so to that extent it
53 would be educational.
54
55 Q. Yes. If you had some problems, you might wish to know
56 whether it was because at a particular time you were
57 processing too many carcasses. You would not know that
58 unless you had continuous monitoring of that information?
59 A. It is always necessary to put right whatever might be
60 wrong on a particular day at a particular time, yes.
