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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How this comes up: A short case about a business with a quality problem, then a task on one way of managing quality: explain one advantage and one disadvantage of it for that business.
Or a short definition: quality control, or quality assurance.
The answer pattern
- Name the advantage in one short sentence.
- Show it in the business, with a fact or a figure from the case.
- Name the disadvantage in one short sentence.
- Show that in the business too. Then stop: no conclusion is needed.
The trap: a textbook answer: "Quality assurance prevents faults, but it costs money" is true of every business. Each half needs the case: the 40 loaves a night, Priti's check, the bakers' training.
And one of each: a second advantage adds nothing.
Explain one advantage and one disadvantage for Lena's Bakery Ltd of moving from quality control to quality assurance.
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.