House of Quality Case Study Yummy Cakes Chocolate Cake House of Quality

You are a registered student at the University of Johannesburg, and as part of your curriculum you are
registered for Operations Management 1A. As part of your module assessment, you have been
requested to approach an organisations research and development division in order to assist with
product development. Although the task was easy, finding a company, however, proved to be quite
difficult as research and development is a central division to any company, and allowing anyone access
to sensitive information is met with high level of reluctance. Nevertheless, you have managed to
approach Yummy Cakes, a bakery located in Braamfontein.
Yummy Cakes specializes in custom made one of a kind Original Designs based on the couples hobbies,
occupation, age or perhaps favourite food or place. Cakes made by Yummy Cakes could be done in a
variety of styles such as classic, fun, modern, simple or simple outrageous. The company goes the
extra miles to make their customers vision of cakes a reality, by listening to what the customer really
wants and incorporating those desires in every aspect of cakes production.
It appeared that you joined the company at the right time, when they just received an order for a
sublime flower bouquet cake. The cake has been commissioned for a wedding which will take place in
two months, which definitely gives the design team enough time to design, develop and make the
cake for this beautiful event. You have integrated the R&D department of Yummy Cakes made up of
Miss Matshidiso Morero, the head baker and owner, Ms Natasha Tshabalala, the head of marketing
and customers relation, Mr Rethuse Nkosi, finance manager, Mr Anthony Fuentes, the creative officer,
Ms Mothepane Moloi, the operations and production manager, and yourself as assistant operations
manager.
Yummy cakes promise to its customer is that it will always make sure that it delivers its cakes as the
customer wants it, and to achieve that, it makes use of Quality Function Deployments house of
quality. The first thing required to build the house of quality is to identify customer wants, which was
done by Natasha. Second, it was to identify how the good/service will satisfy customer wants, third
relate customer wants to product hows, then identify relationships between the firms hows, and
thereafter develop importance ratings. Below is what the first house of quality looked like.

Figure 1 House of Quality of Customers Requirements vs. How the Company plans to satisfy them!

From the initial assessment, which is represented above, Yummy Cakes decided to proceed with a
further assessment of how the organisation plans to achieve the greatest level of customer
satisfaction. With the help of Natasha, Anthony and Mothepane, you were able to determine what
would be the internal requirements to satisfy customers. Here is what is required (1) baking time, (2)
baking temperature, (3) order of ingredients, (4) length of wet ingredient mixing time, (5) length of
dry ingredient mixing time, (6) age of ingredients, (7) quality of ingredients, (8) cost of ingredients, (9)
exposure to air, (10) use of Softening shortening, (11) use of Crispening shortening, (12) Use of
flavourful ingredients, and (13) ratio of chocolate chips to flour, and their respective importance
ratings 13.7, 13.7, 12.4, 1.4, 1.4, 4.1, 12.4, 9.9, 1.1, 5.5, 1.6, 12.4, and lastly 3.0. After listing what the
requirements are, the team came up with how the organisation intends to satisfy those requirements
(1) oven type, (2) baker experience/education, (3) flour type, (4) vanilla type, (5) shortening type
(butter), (6) shortening type (vegetable shortening), (7) shortening type (margarine), (8) egg grade, (9)
container brand, (10) chocolate chip brand, and (11) ingredients shelving. From the information
gathered, the team was able to establish relationships between:
A. Hows Vs. Hows
1. Oven type has a strong negative correlation with baker experience/education, a positive
correlation shortening type (vegetable shortening) and strong negative correlation with
ingredients shelving.
2. Flour type has strong negative correlation with shortening type (butter), but a strong positive
correlation with shortening type (margarine).
3. Vanilla type has a strong negative correlation with container brand, but a strong positive
correlation with chocolate chip brand.
4. Shortening type (butter) has a strong negative correlation with shortening type (margarine).
5. Shortening type (vegetable shortening) has a strong positive correlation with container brand.
6. Shortening type (margarine) has a negative correlation with egg grade, but a positive
correlation with ingredients shelving
7. Lastly, container brand has positive correlation with chocolate chip brand.
B. Whats Vs. Hows
1. Baking time has a medium relationship with oven type, and strong one with baker
experience/education.
2. Baking temperature has a strong relationship with oven type.
3. Order of ingredients has a strong relationship with baker experience/education.
4. Length of wet ingredient mixing time has a strong relationship with baker
experience/education.
5. Length of dry ingredient mixing time has a strong relationship with baker
experience/education.
6. Age of ingredients has a medium relationship with baker experience/education.
7. Quality of ingredients has a strong relationship with flour type, vanilla type, shortening type
(butter) and chocolate chip brand, a medium relationship with shortening type (vegetable
shortening) as well as egg grade, but a weak relationship with shortening type (margarine).
8. Cost of ingredients has medium relationship with shortening type (Margarine)
9. Exposure to air has a weak relationship with both baker experience/education and container
brand.
10. Use of softening shortening has a medium relationship with shortening type (vegetable
shortening) and a strong one with shortening type (margarine).
11. Use of crispening shortening has strong relationship with shortening type (butter).
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12. Use of flavourful ingredients has a strong relationship with both shortening type (butter) and
chocolate chip brand, but a weak relationship with shortening type (vegetable shortening).
13. Ratio of chocolate chip to flour has a strong relationship with baker experience/education.
After establishing the levels of relationships between the hows, and between the hows and the whats,
each member of the team managed to build a house of quality, and Ms Matshidiso requested that you
verify whether which one is the correct one.