How to Maximize Production Using Candy Molds

Whether planning a start-up business or introducing a new product, efficiency is one of the top priorities. So we must ask — how can we maximize efficiency while producing Candy?

There are many variables to this question. We're going to do our best to keep it short and sweet, and give examples of the questions normally asked, and general answers.

1. How many people will be in production?

For instance, let's say you're a start-up business and have 2 production employees now. They are both working 40hrs per week in production.

2. How many molds can these production employees handle in a production cycle?

To give an answer to this question, we typically like to consider a goal for the production needs of the company. For instance, your company must make 45,000 candies per week to meet market demand.

Needing to produce 45,000 candies per week. This would mean we need to reach an output of 9,000 candies per business day on average, with 2 full-time 40 hour employees.

Our 3.5mL cavity Square Candy mold has 150 cavities per mold. If you were to use 60 of these 1/4 sheet pan size molds, place them on 15 FULL baking sheet pans, and hand pour them ONCE (Easily achieve this in under 1 hour with 2 employees). Then freeze / heat them. This shouldn't require longer than 2 hours depending on material (estimate based on gummy / hard candy mix). Then de-cast them in under 1 hour.

You can make your desired quantity for the day in just around 4 hours. ONE production cycle per day would allow you to meet the desired amount of candies per week.

3. Number of production cycles per day needed to reach maximum efficiency?

Using the information from above, we found that 1 production cycle per day in a 5 day business week; maximum efficiency can be reached by using 60 Quarter sheet pan size molds with 150 cavities each mold; For 5 days a week, this results to a yield of 9,000 candies per day, 45,000 candies per week, in about 20 hours total. That's on average 180,000 candies per month with only 60 molds!

Now Consider this.. Your team has achieved their production goal in 20 hours. That's half the time allotted for producing candies. Saving the company time, and money. Freeing up more time creates opportunity for cross training, or even taking production from a 5 day process, to a 3 day process or less!

Want a simple equation to get an estimate of how much you can produce in a full production cycle? See below: