Ray Kroc, founder and chairman of McDonald's^® Corp. from 1955 to 1984, was famous for many of his mottos, but perhaps none more so than his philosophy of the three-legged stool as illustrated by his quote, “none of us is as good as all of us.” The three-legged stool refers to the relationship between corporation, franchisees and suppliers. Mid South Baking Co., a key supplier of buns, rolls and English muffins to McDonald's, exemplifies the importance of this relationship, not only in the way that it services its customer, but also in the way that it works with other McDonald's bakery suppliers.

Mid South Baking Co. has worked with other bakeries to develop a common language toward continuous improvement. In doing so, Mid South relied on its own internal quality systems, third-party evaluations, other bakery evaluations and state-of-the-art automation to achieve its goals.

As a company that places great emphasis on having an assured supply of product to meet its customers' demands, Mid South places equally as much importance on the quality of its delivery and distribution system as it does on the production side of the business. As such, the bakery is committed to not only producing product according to specification, but also delivering product accurately and on time.

A council of bakers

Years ago, McDonald's started a group of councils where its suppliers with common interests banded together to work toward best practices. Mid South Baking Co. joined other bakers to form McDonald's Bakery Council. “Everybody laid their buns on the table,” says Fred Bower, president, C.E.O. and managing partner of Mid South. As one baker compared its product to another's, a lot of differences were noted from one part of the country to the other. It wasn't a matter of product being out of spec, but the range of product attributes strayed widely from the target line. As a result, Mid South and its fellow bakery suppliers worked jointly with McDonald's USA and its franchisees to improve the consistency of key attributes so they are more centrally focused on target.

“What we've done is align our strategies in areas of people, product, progress and practices to where we're all going in a common direction,” Bower says. “We've identified those common areas where we can make the greatest difference to improve product, give them the best possible value and find ways of improving our service to the restaurants.”

Among the areas that McDonald's bakers have analyzed are manufacturing practices, including those associated with direct labor and the purchase of ingredients. As such, Bower and his managers have the opportunity to see how their practices compare with other bakeries on the council.

Sensory perception is one of the many quality aspects Mid South focuses on. Once a year, a realignment process takes place to make sure the bakery's buns, rolls and English muffins meet McDonald's sensory expectations. All of this is done under the guidance of McDonald's sensory and quality personnel who select product that meets its specifications of appearance, flavor and texture. A tasting and scoring session is then conducted with Mid South's management, line supervisors, quality staff, field service people and McDonald's sensory personnel to ensure the bakery's product is aligned according to its customer's expectations. “We use a scoring system that is a degree of difference system to tell us what the target is and how far off the product is from that target. It works very well,” says Bill Snell, quality assurance manager for Mid South.

The bakery also relies on a lot of third party involvement to ensure both its quality and safety standards are on target. Mid South bakeries have bi-annual food safety audits and safety scoring by AIB International, and maintains a Superior rating. On occasion, Mid South sends its product to other McDonald's bakers for quality scoring. It also receives food safety and quality systems audits from Homewood, Ill.-based Silliker Inc. Mid South's HACCP program is fully approved by an outside third party, as are all of the other bakeries' on McDonald's Bakery Council.

To assess its level of preparation, the bakery runs a mock recall. “We have to be able to perform within four hours,” Bower says. “We have to know where the product went, how we're going to get it back and who has to be notified.” Another part of the certification process is the timing of the mock recall.

“The recall has to be performed after hours,” adds Homer Daniels, general manager for Mid South. “That's one of the criteria of HACCP.”