Sunburst Bakeries is a supplier of all kinds of bread and cakes to leading Australian supermarkets. It has several huge factories, each specializing in the production of a limited range of goods. For example, breads and bread-related products (bagels, etc.) are made in their Aliceville factory, outside of Sydney and their cakes and sweet goods are manufactured in Campbel. Each factory makes the entire range of products - i.e., no finished items are bought in from other bakeries. Each factory works round the clock, 24/7 365 days a year. Recently management has been considering the option of purchasing a large section of land very close to a transportation hub that includes road, rail and air links to the rest of Australia. If the proposal is to go ahead all productions would take place in one megafactory to be built on this site and a large investment would be made to automate many of production processes. Management believes that the better and easier transportation of goods, especially the rail option would dramatically cut the company's 'carbon footprint (reduced CO emissions) and reduce production costs with better economies of scale and reduced staffing, thus ensuring it's long-term economic viability.

 

Discuss the ecological and economic sustainability of the new proposal as well as the social effects of likely redundancies at Sunburst Bakeries if the proposal goes ahead.