Why is quality planning important? Quality improvement is a planned managerial activity which involves identifying potential areas for improvements, prioritizing potential areas for improvement, and planning the implementation of projects and improvements (Foster, 2017:106)

Against the above background, students are required to demonstrate and apply the knowledge gained from the course by drawing up a strategic quality plan for the Bakery.

The following elements should be included in the Strategic Quality Plan:

1. PESTEL and SWOT analysis

2. Measurement and funding streams

The story of the gluten-free bread mishap in the times of COVID19 Background James Riddles owns a small bakery called Riddles Bread and Confectionary (RB&C) in Epping that has been in operation since 1999. The company started off small with five employees and expanded so they now have 57 employees. James is the CEO and he has a management team consisting of seven people. This includes a finance manager (Jame's son) Alex. Alex Riddles has an assistant Jennifer Conradie. A marketing manager Abofele Khule is also part of the management team with two assistants. There is a HR person (Jame's wife), a quality manager, three production managers in the management team as well. Each production manager leads a production team consisting of 12 workers. James has a PA, the quality manager has three staff members reporting to him. There is also a maintenance person and a tea lady employed by the company, as well as 4 seasonal workers who assist during busy periods such as festive season and Easter. The company uses two shifts - thus two of the three production teams are working 12 hour shifts per day. Each team works a maximum of three consecutive days and one production team is always off while the other 2 teams are working which is in line with the basic conditions of employment. There are two production lines - a standard line and a gluten-free line. The company has a zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol. Since it is a small family-owned business the general culture in the bakery is one of team building and mentoring. Mr Riddles always shows an interest in his employees well being and with the HR manager they ensure that at least once a month the company hosts a social event on company expense to strengthen the company culture. Notably, RB&C are ISO accredited with and have a certified integrated management system. They are certified for FSSC 22000, ISO 9001, ISO 45001. SABS conducts an annual audit of all three standards. On the 29 April 2020 a complaint came in from Mrs Sisanda Jackson who purchased a loaf of gluten-free bread and had an adverse reaction after consuming some of the bread. She was hospitalised where it was confirmed that her allergic reaction was from gluten exposure. Her rehabilitation lost three months of income due to the incident. At the hospital it was confirmed that her adverse reaction was from gluten exposure. HOWN What happened before that in the factory..... On the 15 March 2020, Melvin COVID-191 Grobbelar, one of the production team members, contracted COVID19. During that period before Lockdown when social distancing was not nationally mandated or the norm yet, because of the family-orientated nature of the company, the employees were not really maintaining all the necessary health and safety protocols. James Riddles was concemed though and asked the HR manager Sashnee Naidoo Riddles to start looking into what the company can do in response to the pandemic. Sashnee did some research and then presented an in-house basic COVID19 awareness training to the employees. Following this, some employees maintained social distancing, but some did not (thinking that COVID19 was not so serious), although all employees were instructed to sanitize their hands regularly upon entering the premises and all employees had to wear masks. Melvin went in for a test after he started developing symptoms and on the 21st March he tested positive. Five days after Melvin tested positive, 8 of the other 12 production team members in his team also tested positive. All employees on that team had to go on leave and self-isolate because it was decided that even though only 8 were positive the others could have been assymptomtomatic. Mr Riddles decided that they should all go on paid sick leave. In essence. an entire production team/shift was out of action. The other two teams had to cover all the operating shifts when Melvin's team went down. Thus the result was that the shifts were short-staffed since 26 people had to do the work of the 39 people. The teams could not work longer hours due to current South African labour law