Lee VanBibber - Management

Our phones are ringing off the hook! I’m doing damage control with the regional office. We have a serious problem – we’ve got far too many customers calling the 800 number complaining of a “nasty taste.” What am I supposed to do with that? A nasty taste? That’s hardly specific information and we haven’t been able to nail it down. The line is saying it’s the seasoning, some think it’s a burnt flavor and at least one of our stations insists it’s due to chips cut too thick. I dunno, but we need to conduct a total review before Regional drops the hammer.

Everyone’s working this. I’ve scheduled back-to-back meetings for you with each of the station supervisors. Compile their input and run the numbers. Let’s find out what’s going on here.

Stephen Williams - Maintenance

Dangit, I don’t know. I’ve been working a lot at the ramp vibration at seasoning, but haven’t been able to find the problem. I wouldn’t think that a vibrating ramp is going to change the flavor of a chip but it’s something!

Rajesh Sharma - Vendor

Ah yes. It is often said that ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom.

If you want to know when the wine turns to vinegar, my friend, you will have to taste it at every stage of the process. That is, you must begin in the vineyard with the bitter grape. It is true that some wines improve with age, but only if the grapes were very good in the first place.

Mike Watts - Inspection

Well this sounds like a big deal. Alright, let’s get to it. There’s a number of molds that could have gotten into the raw and could really mess up the flavor, or worse. If this is the case, it’s due to the potatoes being stored too warm.

Here’s the data. The spuds should be at 75 degrees when they hit the line. Any warmer could indicate mold.

Greg Herman - Peeling

Well the potatoes come out of the ground, and if we don’t get all the peel off … what do you think they’re going to taste like? That’s right, dirt. Look, I know you’re just trying to help, but you gotta learn to talk to people. You can’t just storm in here and wave your degree and expect people to kiss the ground you talk on. You get me?

Take a look at these numbers and you’ll find the same thing that I already have. We’re getting plenty of the skin off the spud for them to be just fine.

If they didn’t teach you at the university, we shoot for 0.5% of the peel remaining.

Norma Olson - Slicing

Hey hon, good to see you again, sorry it’s with the line in such a ringer. You should stop by sometime when the line’s not having problems.

Anywho, nasty is certainly a vague description, but nothing’s worse than opening a bag of nasty chips. Slicing really doesn’t affect taste much though, we have more of an impact on texture. Our data is well within limits.

Bear Hannighan - Frying

Hmph, chips burn when oil is over 350. Bear hands you the data.

Rachelle Scott - Seasoning

Yeah, I guess it could be Seasoning. Salt content should be a consistent 2.10% with some allowance for standard deviation. If the salt content gets far enough askew, I could see people complaining about it. You’d think they would describe the taste as salty or bland though. Who knows?

Sandra Deak - Sorting

Good afternoon. Let me tell you up front, we’re in bounds. You can take a look at our data but you’ll find the same thing.

However, one thing is bothering me. Here at sorting we look at color and size and again, we’re fine on those measurements. But you see this ramp coming over from seasoning? This ramp vibrates to shake off excess oil and seasoning – or it’s supposed to.

But lately, this little jitterbug hasn’t been vibrating as it should. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Unfortunately, there’s no dataset for the ramp.

Charlie Gomez - Packaging

Seeing you here makes me so nervous! I think my boys are in the clear this time though. Oh and hey, don’t let the others upset you, they just know how much this shut down is costing the company and they don’t want to be at fault.