Executive Summary

Sustainable growth through innovation, excellent customer service, and attention to detail.

The Sweetooth Candy Company was founded in 1939 in the suburbs of London, England. The company began producing chocolates for the British military soldiers fighting in World War II. Since that time, Sweetooth has grown its operations and market saturation. In a factory with machines that once produced 1,250 chocolate candies per day, Sweetooth has stepped up production and operations to allow for the production of more than 10,000 candies per hour.

This now sizable operation requires precision execution in order to function properly at all times and fabricate products that meet rigorous demands and particular expectations. Yet still, not all machines and processes at Sweetooth can operate flawless at all times.


Lately, consumers have begun to receive chocolates with loose wrappings and altered tastes. Complaints have filtered back through distribution channels to Mrs. Sweetooth, the chocolate factory’s senior manager. Mrs. Sweetooth understands that no production process can be entirely without faults all the time, but because of the complaints she’s received, Mrs. Sweetooth is concerned that the error rate of her company’s operations may be too high. Mrs. Sweetooth is not a Production and Operations Management (aka Operations Science) expert, and as such has contracted the services of our company, Six Sigma Consulting, LLP.

Our team of POM experts visited the Sweetooth factory and collected data from operations as well as from employees. Our team determined that the answers to a few essential questions needed to be uncovered in order to determine the appropriate course of action for Sweetooth.

First, are the chocolate-making machines producing candies with specifications that meet certain criteria? This will determine whether the Sweetooth processes are in statistical control or not. Next, does the wrapping process do a satisfactory job of keeping candies tightly sealed until being opened by end consumers? Lastly, an analysis of the cookie-making operations of Nadisco must be performed to determine the accuracy of Nadisco’s product claims.

Data from sampling has allowed our team to determine the average thickness of candies produced, the upper and lower control limits for both the means and ranges of the data, and the Six Sigma spread for individual pieces of candy. Our analysis indicates that the candy-making process for Sweetooth is in statistical control and does not need to be stopped. The data also show the wrapping process to be generally satisfactory. In one sample there were outlying data that hinted at a problem with wrapping, but because this occurrence was infrequent on nonrecurring in nature, we suggest the company simply keeps an eye on the wrapping process in the future. As a note, however, the very particular distributor who will accept their order only if 1% or fewer of the candies is badly wrapped, poses a problem for Sweetooth. Sampling data and subsequent calculations indicate that the risk of shipment rejection for Sweetooth is roughly 26.42%. This number is far too high, and Sweetooth should be wary of these odds.

With regard to the analysis of the cookie operations, Nadisco’s claim of 1,000 chocolate chips per box of cookies is not met. Not only that, the company’s mixing process seems to be flawed to the extent that it could be affecting the distribution of chips in the cookies themselves. Six Sigma Consulting’s recommendations for Nadisco, with regard to this matter, is to either add more chips to the mixing process, or improve the mixing process itself. The former option would actually improve Sweetooth’s bottom line because more chocolate would need to be purchased. The latter option would assure that average number of chips per cookie is much more consistent. With this kind of consistency, fewer chocolate chips would be needed to assure the 1,000 chips-per-box guarantee. Either way, implementing one of these two options should assure improved results at Nadisco.

Taking into account all the data collection and analysis performed by our team, the manufacturing processes of both Sweetooth and Nadisco can be streamlined and made more accurate for better future performance in the production of chocolate chips and cookies. As a result, customer satisfaction should increase, and subsequently lead to increased demand for both products.