2. Quality is very important to Cappellas (a) What features of croissants do customers look at to judge their quality of croissants? (b) At what points in the production process do workers check croissant quality? (c) List the steps in the production process, beginning with purchasing ingredients, and ending with the sale, and state how quality can be positively affected at each step. Will the present layout meet customer demands for on- time shipments to shops. Explain why or why not and be certain to identify potential bottlenecks and how they will be resolved. (d) Identify possible uses for returned deformed croissants. Cappellas Croissants Cappellas Croissants makes and sells a variety of croissants, including plain, onion, lavendar, and chocolate, as well as seasonal flavors. Croissants are the major source of revenue for the company. The croissant business is a billion dollar industry. Croissants are very popular with many different types of consumers. They are filling, and they taste good! Investors like the croissant industry because it can be highly profitable: it only costs about.15 to make a croissant, and they can be sold for $1.00 each or more. Although some croissant companies have not done well due to the pandemic and/or management, Cappellas business is growing. Being the top croissant producer in the nation, with over 600 shops that sell croissants, coffee, tea, and croissant sandwiches for takeout, pick- up, or on premise. Many shops in the Cappellas chain generate an average of $750,000 in annual sales. Production of croissants is done in batches, according to flavor, with each flavor being produced on a daily basis. Production of croissants at Cappellas begins at a processing plant, where the basic ingredients of flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar, butter, milk and flavorings are combined in a special mixing machine. After the dough has been thoroughly mixed and kneaded, it is transferred to another machine that shapes the dough into individual croissants. Once the croissants have been formed, they are loaded onto refrigerated trucks for shipping to individual shops. When the croissants arrive at a shop, they are unloaded from the trucks and temporarily stored while they proof (2 hours). The final steps of processing involves brushing the egg wash on the top, and then baking the in a convection oven for 6 minutes at 195C / 385F, then lowering the temperature to 165C / 330F, and bake them for another 9 minutes.. The process is depicted in Figure 1. Quality is an important feature of a successful business. Customers judge the quality of croissants by their appearance (size, shape, and shine), taste, and consistency. Customers are also sensitive to the service they receive when they make their purchases. Cappellas devotes careful attention to quality at every stage of operation, from choosing suppliers of ingredients, careful monitoring of ingredients, and keeping equipment in good operating condition to monitoring output at each step in the process. At the shops, employees are instructed to watch for deformed croissants and to remove them when they find them. Deformed croissants are returned to the main plant. Employees who work in the shops are carefully chosen and then trained so that they are competent to operate the necessary equipment in the shops and to provide the desired level of service to customers. The company operates with minimal inventories of raw materials and inventories of partially completed croissants at the plant and very little inventory of croissants at the shops. One reason for this is to maintain a high degree of freshness in the final product by continually supplying fresh product to the stores. A second reason is to keep costs down; minimal inventories mean less space is needed for storage