Frito lay quality control

ADMN 580 - CASE 02 Frito-Lay’s Quality-Controlled Potato Chips NOTE: Please be sure to watch the associated case video embedded in the Pearson e-text. TEXTBOOK CASE Frito-Lay, the multi-billion-dollar snack food giant, produces billions of pounds of product every year at its dozens of U.S. and Canadian plants. From the farming of potatoes—in Florida, North Carolina, and Michigan—to factory and to retail stores, the ingredients and final product of Lay’s chips, for example, are inspected at least 11 times: in the field, before unloading at the plant, after washing and peeling, at the sizing station, at the fryer, after seasoning, when bagged (for weight), at carton filling, in the warehouse, and as they are placed on the store shelf by Frito-Lay personnel. Similar inspections take place for its other famous products, including Cheetos, Fritos, Ruffles, and Tostitos. In addition to these employee inspections, the firm uses proprietary vision systems to look for defective potato chips. Chips are pulled off the high-speed line and checked twice if the vision system senses them to be too brown. The company follows the very strict standards of the American Institute of Baking (AIB), standards that are much tougher than those of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Two unannounced AIB site visits per year keep Frito-Lay’s plants on their toes. Scores, consistently in the “excellent” range, are posted, and every employee knows exactly how the plant is doing. There are two key metrics in Frito-Lay’s continuous improvement quality program: (1) total customer complaints (measured on a complaints per million bag basis) and (2) hourly or daily statistical process control scores (for oil, moisture, seasoning, and salt content, for chip thickness, for fryer temperature, and for weight). In the Florida plant, Angela McCormack, who holds engineering and MBA degrees, oversees a 15-member quality assurance staff. They watch all aspects of quality, including training employees on the factory floor, monitoring automated processing equipment, and developing and updating statistical process control (SPC) charts. The upper and lower control limits for one checkpoint, salt content in Lay’s chips, are 2.22% and 1.98%, respectively. To see exactly how these limits are created using SPC, watch the video that accompanies this case. ADDITIONAL INFO (FROM YOUR INSTRUCTOR) Assume your team is a consulting group that specializes in implementing quality systems at medium-to-large sized manufacturers. You are competing with another consulting firm to win Frito-Lay’s business. As part of the selection process, Frito-Lay management has asked you to conduct an initial assessment of their current quality systems and present your recommend improvements. This presentation will give you the opportunity to demonstrate your team’s understanding of the client’s issues, your ability to conduct a logical quantitative analysis, and your strategic approach to problem solving. The client has asked you to include the following deliverables in your presentation. Original Case from Operations Management: Sustainability and Supply Chain Management by Heizer, Render, and Munson © 2020 Pearson Education, Inc. Additional Content by Russell A. Miles, Peter Zaimes, and Alice Sheehan (UNH Peter T Paul College of Business and Economics) ADMN 580 - CASE 02 Frito-Lay’s Quality-Controlled Potato Chips 1. ASSESS ANGELA’S PROPOSED (NEW) PROCESS Getting the salt content “just right” is critical to producing a quality potato chip. Angela McCormack has been working on improving the salt delivery process on Frito-Lay’s potato chip production line. During a trial run of her new proposed process, Angela collected samples of the chips being produced and measured the percentage salt content.