Not long ago, New England Confectionery Company, or Necco for short, marked the production of its one trillionth candy wafer. The humble roots of Necco, the country's oldest continuously operating candy company, began in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1847. In fact, during the Civil War, Union soldiers carried Necco “hub wafers.”

Over the years, the candy maker has expanded production and become famous for more than just its wafers. Its product line includes the world-famous Sweethearts, a favorite for Valentine's Day, Clark Bar, Candy Buttons, Mighty Malts, and Haviland Thin Mints.

In addition to inventing a machine to print sayings onto candy, Necco founder Oliver Chase invented and patented the first American candy machine, a lozenge cutter. The result is Necco's iconic pastel-colored wafers, made mainly from sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, colorings, and flavoring. In its most recent year, the company produced over 4 billion wafers. Integral to the timely production and delivery of Necco's sweet treats is an ongoing strategic planning and production process. Production for Valentine's Day, an annual event lasting 24 hours, consists of 11 months of work. During this time, the company produces roughly 15 million pounds of Sweetheart hearts and over 8 billion of them are sold in a six-week window. After Valentine's Day, the demand for Sweethearts falls off dramatically.

For more than 150 years, the production process for Necco's hearts has remained unchanged. The ingredients to make the dough are mixed and then thrown on a machine for stretching and rolling.

Sweethearts are embossed, rather than laser printed, in red ink with an old-fashioned print plate, including letters that can be rearranged and moved. It is during embossing that the dough gets cut into the shape of a heart. Two to three days later, after the drying (not baking) process, the hearts are placed into what Necco calls its rocket launcher, which mixes them together so that no one box has too many hearts of the same color. There are 72 different affectionate sayings like “Kiss Me,” “Be True,” and, “XOXO,” and each year 12 new sayings are added. Newer sayings include “Te Amo,” “Pugs & Kittens,” “BFF,” “Girl Power,” “Luv 2 Dance,” and “Je T'aime,” and a few emoticon images, like a smiley face and a mustache. In fact, on the company's website, consumers can order personalized hearts and Necco wafers.

As a production company, Necco focuses its strategies on identifying opportunities for process improvement. The task of the company's executive called the lean champion is to identify, through observation and dialogue with employees, areas throughout the company in need of improvement. A cross-functional team is assembled to address many different kinds of process improvements, which can range from safety issues to eliminating waste and reworks of any kind. Oftentimes, this process improvement may include managing people and machinery.

In addition to process improvement, Necco focuses intently on quality. At the heart of its operation is balancing the production process, which includes projecting the time required to produce its various products while meeting delivery schedules. A Necco production supervisor firmly states there are no shortcuts to making a product that should have gone out the door yesterday. Each step in the production process requires a certain amount of time, and there are procedures followed to ensure that a quality food product is delivered to the customer. Necco also remains well aware that the company would not be in business without its customers. The company strives for freshness and consistency by weighing, measuring, and timing each of the 10 steps in the production of its wafers, for example.

About a decade ago, in order to expand, Necco was faced with a location decision after many years at its original 500,000-squarefoot location and longtime home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company made the decision to move to a suburb about eight miles away—a location that boasts an 800,000+–square-foot facility for its 500 employees. One of the location factors in Necco's decision was to remain close to its roots in Cambridge. In addition, the company has plans to expand and house production of multiple products under one roof while retaining and growing its longtime base of coveted employees and nearby suppliers. Despite moves by most candy companies to Mexico where sugar is less expensive, Necco refused to even consider the consequence of such a move on its loyal employees.

Part of Necco's production process involves monitoring and controlling inventory. Necco must pay constant attention to products such as sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, colorings, and flavoring to avoid wasting dollars in carrying inventory on its warehouse floor. Its methods include carrying enough “safety stock” and controlling the inventory it does keep on hand without having to tie up a lot of money with product “sitting on the warehouse that's not going to move.” Ideally, Necco would prefer not to keep any inventory on hand, although that's next to impossible until the company is able to improve its processes that would allow raw materials to be delivered just in time for production. However, for a company producing 8 billion individually embossed Sweetheart candies annually, Valentine's Day, for years gone by and those to come, would not be the same without Necco's miniature proclamations of romantic intentions.

Questions for Critical Thinking

1. What is the key role of a production supervisor at Necco, how might it change during peak production times, and with which departments and employees might the supervisor interface?

How might the role of a production supervisor at Necco differ from that of a company with a steadier production process?

2. A daily staff meeting at Necco can be considered part of production control, contributing to the smooth running of the candy production process. Who might attend such a meeting? What kinds of topics might they discuss, and how might the discussion change during peak production times?

3. What steps does a supervisor at Necco take to balance quality and doing a job well? As a player in the food business, discuss and provide examples of the ways and the processes Necco uses to monitor quality throughout its supply chain. Evaluate and discuss Necco's quality control process, and list any changes you might make.

4. Discuss Necco's efforts to remain relevant in today's environment. How do its efforts to remain relevant impact its production processes and decisions? Discuss the role of mass customization in the production of Necco's Sweetheart candies.