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SCHOLARS’ WEBQUEST
THE PROBLEM
The Quality Manager at Candy Creations, a medium sized producer of confectionary products in Trinidad and Tobago, called an emergency meeting with the Production Manager; Mr. George, following a review of the past month’s operating results. There was a problem!
A recently conducted market research report indicated that Tropical Paradise, one of the hard sweets produced by the company, had gained popularity since its launch on the market nine months ago. Within a three-month period it ranked second in demand and generated a healthy contribution. Management was pleased!
Over the past month however, there was a significant change. The company was receiving an increasing number of customer complaints that the sweet was brittle and crumbling; additionally, product returns were growing. This situation was having a negative impact on the bottom line and management demanded immediate action to stem the flow. Mr. George, was quite baffled as to the root cause of the problem, but committed to getting his team together to find the source.
At the production team’s meeting, several reasons were offered as possible causes – size of the candy mold, the recipe, ingredients, process specifications….. Ultimately, it was agreed by all that the genesis of the problem was that of quality management. Candice Thomas, one of the management trainees on the team, suggested that they approach the exercise using some of the quality management tools she was exposed to in a Production and Operations Management course she had pursued. She explained that with the use of tools such as – Check Sheets, Flow Charts, Scatter Plots, Cause & Effect Charts, and Histograms – they would be able to identify the problem areas and determine the corrective measures needed. Mr. George and the others were quite agreeable to the suggestion, particularly in view of the time constraints they were under. They were given two weeks to solve the problem!
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