Sweet Success Restoring Performance in Dessert Manufacturing

Background:

A food manufacturer supplying desserts to a major fast-food chain faced escalating operational challenges. Despite standardized recipes, their manufacturing processes created unnecessary variation. As a result, the operation fell short of customer demand by nearly 30%, forcing the facility to run 21 shifts per week (7 days, 3 shifts per day) just to keep pace. Quality issues compounded the problem, with low first-time yield driving waste, rework, and inefficiency across multiple sites.

Critical Issues:

• 30% shortfall in distribution requirements
• Variation in product output despite standard recipes
• Low first-time yield eroding efficiency and capacity
• Employees strained by 7-day operating schedule, driving low morale and retention issues
• Lack of consistent accountability and execution rhythm across leadership

Our Approach:

Crossover Solutions deployed a cross-functional team to perform a full operational assessment across multiple divisions. Common underperformance themes were identified and tackled through a collaborative supplier improvement process.

Key Actions:

• Stabilizing mixing and metering equipment to eliminate batch variation
• Tightening control of ingredient tolerances to ensure product consistency
• Embedding manufacturing principles that reduced throughput losses
• Introducing cadence-of-accountability systems and executive coaching to align leadership with improved execution discipline

Results:

• First-time yield significantly improved, unlocking more efficient use of existing assets
• Operations reduced from 21 shifts per week to just 14 shifts, while meeting 100% of demand
• Improved product consistency restored customer and distributor confidence
• Employee morale and retention strengthened as schedules stabilized
• Leadership alignment created a sustainable rhythm of accountability and continuous improvement