5 a.m. at Mill Lane: Before the vans leave, Priti walks along the racks and checks every batch of bread.
A loaf that is burnt, flat or the wrong shape goes into a crate at the back. On a normal night about 40 loaves end up in that crate.
A product has good quality when it does what customers expect of it, every time. For a loaf, that means the right size, a good crust, and bread that tastes the same on Monday as on Saturday.
Priti's check is quality control: finished products are inspected, at the end or at set points, and anything below the standard is thrown away or put right before a customer sees it.
How it works at Mill Lane
- One skilled person, Priti, looks at every batch
- She compares each loaf with the standard: size, shape, crust
- Faulty loaves are taken out before the vans leave
What it does well
- Customers rarely get a burnt or flat loaf
- Simple to run: one check at one point in the night
- The standard is clear and the bakers know it
Where it falls short
- The 40 faulty loaves have already used flour, time and oven heat
- It finds faults but not why they happened
- Everything rests on one person seeing every loaf
| What the crate costs in ingredients | Working | $ |
|---|---|---|
| One night | 40 loaves × $0.90 | 36 |
| One year | $36 × 365 nights | 13,140 |
Found, not prevented: Quality control catches faults after they have been made. The flour, the bakers' time and the gas for the oven are already spent.
And it does nothing to stop the next batch burning.
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Lena asks a different question. Not "which loaves are bad?" but "why do 40 loaves go wrong every night?"
To answer it, the bakery sets a standard for each stage of the night's work, and the person doing that stage checks their own work against it.
Quality built in, stage by stage
Flour arrives
A sample from every Valley Grain delivery is tested before it is used. Damp flour goes back.
Mixing
Every recipe is written on a card with exact weights, so each baker mixes the same dough.
Rising and shaping
A timer on each rack of dough shows how long it has been rising, so none is left too long.
Baking
The oven's temperature is checked and written down every hour.
The final look
Priti still checks the batches before 5 a.m. Now she should find far fewer faults.
This is quality assurance: agreed standards at every stage of production, so that faults are prevented instead of found at the end. The workers check their own work as they go, and the business can show customers the standards it works to.
If it halved the faulty loaves to 20 a night, the bakery would save 20 × $0.90 × 365 = $6,570 of ingredients a year.
| Quality control | Quality assurance | |
|---|---|---|
| When | At the end, or at set points | At every stage, all the way through |
| Who checks | An inspector: Priti at 5 a.m. | Each worker, on their own work |
| The aim | Find faulty products and remove them | Stop faults being made at all |
| Its cost | Wasted materials and time, night after night | Training, written standards, time for checks |
| At Mill Lane | The crate of 40 loaves | Flour tests, recipe cards, timers, oven log |
Quality assurance is not more inspection: Hiring a second checker at 5 a.m. is still quality control: it only finds more faults at the end.
Quality assurance changes how the work is done, so fewer faults are made. It is not free either: the bakers need training, and the hourly checks take time.
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Priti knows bread better than anyone, but the bakers shaping dough at 3 a.m. see things she does not.
The Friday group
Meet
Every Friday, Priti and four of the bakers spend 30 minutes with that week's crate of faulty loaves.
Find the cause
One week they spot that most flat loaves come from racks left rising while shaping falls behind.
Try a fix
The bakers suggest shaping in smaller groups, and try it.
See the result
The flat loaves fall.
A quality circle: That Friday group is a quality circle: a small group of workers who do similar work and meet regularly to find, analyse and solve problems in it, then put their own solutions into practice.
How the Friday circle works
Bring the problem
The week's faulty loaves are on the table, so everyone looks at the same thing.
Find the cause
The bakers who did the work say where it went wrong: dough left rising too long.
Agree a fix
They choose the change themselves: shape in smaller groups.
Try it and check
The next week's crate shows whether it worked. If not, back to step 2.
The circle uses what the bakers know, and being trusted to fix their own work can motivate them. It also costs 30 minutes of paid time a week, and it only works if Lena and Priti act on what the bakers suggest.
Lena then looks outside. She joins a national bakers' association that collects figures from its members. About 3 in every 100 Mill Lane loaves are faulty; the best bakeries in the scheme throw away fewer than 1 in 100. She visits one of them and sees a timer on every rack of dough, an idea Mill Lane now uses.
That is benchmarking: comparing a business's performance and processes with those of the best in the industry, then copying or adapting what works.
| Quality circle | Benchmarking | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the ideas come from | Inside: the workers who do the job | Outside: the best in the industry |
| At Mill Lane | Priti and four bakers, every Friday | The association's figures and a visit |
| What it gives | Fixes that fit the bakehouse; bakers feel trusted | A target to aim at, and proven methods |
| What it costs | Paid time away from baking | Fees, visits or a consultant; figures can be hard to get |
When benchmarking goes wrong: A method that works in a large bakery may not suit Mill Lane's one oven and seven bakers. Copying can also cost a lot, especially if a consultant is paid to gather the figures.
And if every idea comes from outside, the bakers may stop suggesting their own.
Quality is everyone's job: Lena wants every person in the business, from the flour store to the shop till, to care about quality.
Why the bakehouse is not enough
- The flour tests, the recipe cards and the Friday circle all happen inside the bakehouse.
- But a loaf can still be spoiled in a hot van, or sold stale at the counter.
That way of running a whole business is total quality management (TQM): everyone in the organization is committed to making it better, by improving its processes, products, service and the way people work together.
At Lena's Bakery Ltd it has three features.
Everyone is responsible
- Bakers, van drivers and shop staff all check their own work
- Quality is not left to Priti's check at 5 a.m.
The next stage is your customer
- The drivers are the bakers' customers; the shops are the drivers' customers
- Each stage hands on only work it would be happy to receive
Right first time, then better
- The aim is no faulty loaves at all, not fewer found at the end
- Ideas from every stage keep improving the work
Customers inside the business, like the drivers collecting bread from the bakers, are called internal customers. Treating them as real customers is at the heart of TQM.
| The impact of TQM on Lena's Bakery Ltd | Benefits | Drawbacks and costs |
|---|---|---|
| Costs | Fewer faulty loaves: less flour, time and gas thrown away | Training for every member of staff, and time off baking and selling |
| Customers | Bread the same every day builds trust and loyal customers | Results take months or years, so the spending comes first |
| Staff | Being trusted with quality can motivate | More checks and targets can feel like extra work and cause stress |
| Managers | Problems are fixed where they start | Managers must share control; the autocratic style from 2.3 clashes with it |
Why TQM can fail: Imagine a manager who gives orders and blames whoever made a mistake. Staff learn to hide faults instead of reporting them, and no circle or recipe card can fix that.
TQM works only when staff are trained, trusted and listened to, and when the owners are willing to wait for the results.
So the impact of TQM depends on the business. It suits one prepared to change how people work together and to wait for the benefits. It is a poor fit for a quick fix.
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A chain of 30 hotels wants Lena's crackers in every room. There is one condition.
The order
- 2,000 packets a month at $2.50.
- 2,000 × $2.50 × 12 = $60,000 of sales a year.
- The condition: the chain buys only from suppliers certified to ISO 9001, the international standard for how a business manages quality.
What a quality standard is: A quality standard is a set of requirements written by an outside body. A business that meets them, checked by independent inspectors, can show a certificate, a mark or a rating.
Some standards are national, set for one country. Others are international and recognised around the world.
| National standard | International standard | |
|---|---|---|
| Example | A food hygiene rating from 0 to 5, shown in the shop window after an inspection | ISO 9001, from the International Organization for Standardization |
| What is checked | How clean and safe the kitchen and the food handling are | The system: written standards, checks at each stage, records, how faults are put right |
| Who it reassures | Shoppers walking past High Street or Station Road | Big buyers and buyers abroad, like the hotel chain |
Why standards matter to a business:
Trust. A customer who has never met Lena can see that an outsider has checked her bakery.
Access to buyers. Some large buyers and many foreign ones only deal with certified suppliers, as the hotel chain does.
A framework. Working towards ISO 9001 means writing down the standards for each stage, which is quality assurance.
What a certificate does not prove: ISO 9001 certifies the system, not every packet. A certified bakery can still send out a burnt batch.
It also costs money and paperwork: here $6,000 in the first year and $2,000 a year for the checks after that, set against $60,000 of new sales.
How this comes up: Expect a case about one business's quality, then questions of different lengths on it.
| Question | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Shorter | Define quality assurance or a quality circle. |
| Two-part | Explain one advantage and one disadvantage of a quality method for the business, often benchmarking against a named rival. |
| Longer | Using a table of survey results and the case, evaluate a plan to improve quality. |
The answer pattern
- Name the advantage: copy a proven method, find where waste and delays come from.
- Show it with the case: the rival's figures against the business's own.
- Name the disadvantage: cost and time, a method that may not fit, staff ideas crowded out.
- Show that with the case too: the consultant's fee, what the business already does well.
The trap: benchmarking in general: "Benchmarking helps a firm improve but is expensive" could be written about any business. Use the rival's name, the figures and the fee.
Keep the two halves apart: an advantage of a quality circle is not an advantage of benchmarking.
Explain one advantage and one disadvantage for Lena's Bakery Ltd of benchmarking its Station Road shop against Hartley's.
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