Quality Management at Krispy Kreme Uk
Essay Preview: Quality Management at Krispy Kreme Uk
Report this essay
Quality Management at Krispy Kreme UK
Introduction
Krispy Kreme Enfield (which will be called just Krispy Kreme in this report) is a branch of Krispy Kreme UK with headquarters in Camberley, Surrey. Located on the northernmost part of London in Enfield, Krispy Kreme is a subsidiary of Krispy Kreme Doughnut, Inc has its headquarters in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States.
Krispy Kreme started with an individual called Vernon Rudolph in the late 1930s. As the official story goes, a French chef from New Orleans had sold Vernon a yeast-raised dough recipe which he then used in making his doughnuts in a rented building in Winston-Salem. As people passed by the building, the nice and strong scent of hot doughnuts attracted them to buy doughnuts as they were being made (Krispy Kreme UK website)
With an annual turnover of £33 million, Krispy Kreme has very little market share in the Food manufacturing and retail industry in general in the UK since its presence in 2003 but over the years, it has found ways to increase the quality of products and services in order to increase that market share. With the departure of its major rival, Dunkin Donuts in the early 2000s, Krispy Kreme UK is ever so expanding with plans to enter the Scottish market in 2011 (British Baker, 2010).
Input, Transformation process and Output
Mixing and extruding: The 3 main ingredients are mixed until it forms dough and then poured into a hopper. The hopper feeds into an extruder (machine that transforms dough into rings) which deposits the ring dough on a rack conveyor belt.
The proof box: The doughnut conveyor belt is mounted inside a tall box-like machine called the proof box or the proofer. Inside, the doughnuts on trays are carried in a two-fold motion of up and down and towards to exit of the proofer.
Frying: Exiting the proofer, dough rings are slowly deposited in the oil in parallel lines in order to be cooked.
Glazing: Coming out of the oil, dough rings pass under the glazing waterfall reservoir where the glaze falls on the dough rings as they pass under it.
Cooling: Glazed, doughnuts are carried on the belt for a few minutes the time which they are slightly cooled until they are collected at the end of the machine by production staff members.
Although Krispy Kreme sells other products such as drinks (hot beverages and cool drinks) and Krispy Kreme branded mugs, t-shirts and small paraphernalia, they are popularly known for doughnuts in general and their signature doughnut (figure 1) the original glaze in particular.
A friend worked as an intern for 6 months and the occasional visit to the store on the A10 motorway made me use it as the subject of this critique.
Quality Management
Quality is defined as consistent conformance with customers expectations (Slack et al, 2004). At Krispy Kreme, customers expectations are highly built on the foundation of Krispy Kremes historical excellence in the doughnut market throughout the world.
Depending on the business sector, quality could mean different things for different companies so there are different approaches of looking at quality as categorised by Professor David Garvin (Pycraft, 2000), “the manufacturing approach” and “the transcendent approach” are the two that apply to doughnuts at Krispy Kreme Enfield, and the former approach only to its service quality.
Managing quality in the food industry is centred on the understanding of what customers expectations are and manufacturing products with specifications based on those expectations and one of the main goals of manufacturing good quality product and providing excellent service at Krispy Kreme is to create “magic moments” (elaborated further later in this report) for customers.
The shop is divided into two main parts: the retail side where goods are sold and the production side where goods are produced.
Figure 2 – Management structure
Quality of service
Mystery shopper and customer experience
As part of its quality management, Krispy Kreme has contracted independent individuals to pop in anonymously once a month, usually within the first week, in order to evaluate the service by its staff, the cleanliness of the shop floor as well as that of the immediate surroundings and certain procedural actions at certain times (See end of 7 steps of service below).
From the moment any customer enters the shop to when they leave, a certain number of their expectations have to be met and this is laid out on the questionnaire the mystery shopper fills in. Being a “special” customer themselves, a mystery shopper or a “Kreme of the crop”, as it is known and referred to only by staff members, will carefully but inconspicuously examines the shop to see if all the necessary requirements in order to score as much as 100% on the questionnaire are met.
All staff members must adopt the company dress code provided by management: a krispy kreme hat, t-shirt and trousers. This shows a certain level of professionalism and a good image for the company. Staff members are not allowed to wear any jewellery on them, t-shirts must be tucked in and simple black shoes must be worn. The mystery shopper will take note of the dress code in their report and if any of these rules are not met, it will be mentioned on the report and will mean that scoring points are lost.
The 7 steps of service
Cleanliness is paramount in the quality of service at Krispy Kreme but it is just the first stage of ensuring a satisfactory experience for the customer.
The customer must be acknowledged by a greeting (1) as soon as they approach the doughnut stand even though they may not be served immediately. This could mainly be due to the high number of customers present and the possibly low number of retail staff members. As long as customers feel that staff members are aware of their presence, they can show a little patience before being served as it is obvious that there is shortage of staff to deal with the volume of orders.
Once the customer is greeted and ready to order, the retail staff member must present the best offers and deals (2) to them by up selling. Deals could be seasonal such as during Christmas and summer holidays. Men and women in uniform (nurses, police officers and fire fighters) receive a special discount on the