SPC Group has chosen ‘quality-first management, responsible management, change and innovation’ as its management keywords for 2021 and worked diligently towards achieving these goals. In particular, the first keyword, quality-first management, aptly embodies SPC Group’s desire to establish its dignity and present customers with an indomitable sense of trust as a leading company in the global food culture. Over the past 8 months, SPC Magazine met with leaders of SPC Group through the ‘Great Food Company’ series, and today, we plan to reflect and look back at the highlights of quality management stories that we have introduced so far.
2021 Summary Video for Quality Management Interviews
Quality Management Leaders at SPC Group
‘Sangmidang,’ the origin of SPC Group
SPC Group originally began as a small bakery called ‘Sangmidang(賞美堂)’ in Ongjin, Hwanghae-do in 1945 and has since grown into a global corporation. Even to this day, when we are leading an extensive range of business areas, including food and ingredients, IT-related services, and distribution, we have continued to uphold Sangmidang’s principle of prioritizing quality. In this article, we will introduce the organizations within SPC Group that tirelessly take on new endeavors and pursue a higher level of quality.
Q. What are the roles of your respective organization?
Seo Jin-ho, Director of SPC Research Institute of Food and Bio Technology
▷SPC Research Institute of Food and Bio Technology: The Research Institute of Food and Bio Technology was established in 2005 to secure SPC Group’s original source technology and know-how through systematic R&D efforts. Currently, the research institute is composed of 4 teams including the food materials research team, the fermentation microorganisms research team, the goods application research team, and the Sensory Lab. By utilizing top-of-the-line equipment and the nation’s finest research manpower, the research institute is developing excellent fermentation microorganisms and food materials with various properties.
Lee Kyung-bae, CEO of Secta9ine
▷Secta9ine: Secta9ine is a corporation that is changing the lives of our customers to add more ease and convenience through IT and marketing services under the vision of becoming a ‘Smart Life Technology Company.’ Its core services include ‘Happy Order,’ that allows the ordering and delivery of various food and beverages from SPC Group’s brand shop through a dedicated app, and ‘Happy Pay,’ SPC Group’s own payment system. In addition, Secta9ine is leading the digital transformation by converting offline services to digital services.
Son Jung-ho, Director of Design Center
▷SPC Group’s Design Center: The Design Center at SPC Group plans and establishes design elements to deliver a pleasant food culture and new experiences for consumers. The Design Center is largely divided into the interior and design divisions. While the interior division deals with large-scale projects, such as new buildings and construction projects, the design division deals with detailed areas that consumers directly come in contact with, such as packaging and visual merchandising design (VMD).
Tireless Efforts to Enhance Quality
What is the essence of quality-first management? The first step, of course, is providing customers with safe, high-quality products, while minimizing the environmental impact of the overall product lifecycle from manufacturing to consumption. Another aspect of SPC Group’s goal of quality-first management is developing new products and services that meet the demands of this day and age. We spoke to the leader of each organization at SPC Group regarding their efforts to put these principles into practice.
Q. What are the major issues related to quality management?
Han Ok-kyun, Director at Quality Management Department of Paris Croissant
▷Quality Management Department at Paris Croissant: The biggest pending task at the Quality Management Department of Paris Croissant is the ‘Q21 Campaign.’ This is a campaign that aims to improve sales and profits by enhancing the taste and quality of products. For the successful completion of this mission, the Quality Management Department is using the Result Index to set and manage inspections of raw materials, preventing the warehousing of nonconforming products, comply with fairness principles, ensure the quality of franchise stores, etc. The department is continuously conducting activities such as daily meetings between the company’s research institute, quality department and production department in order to conduct sensory evaluations for the purpose of improving the quality of finished goods following factory production.
Ahn Deok-jun, Head of the SPC Pack Research Institute
▷SPC Pack Research Institute: Recently, the major concern of SPC Pack is being ‘eco-friendly.’ First, we are promoting measures to apply eco-friendly processes to all products starting with the printing process. To this end, research is being conducted to apply our self-developed eco-friendly printing technology to retort food containers that are exposed to high temperatures through appliances such as microwaves. We are also developing eco-friendly materials, and we are in the process of achieving carbon reduction by using eco-friendly materials such as Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) or bio PET, which are biodegrade in nature. In addition, we are also focusing on ensuring the recycling of resources by re-using waste plastics.
Q. What kinds of quality management efforts are being implemented by each brand store?
Shin So-won, Assistant Manager at Paris Baguette, Yangjae Main Store
▷Paris Baguette, Yangjae Main Store: We are prioritizing safe, sanitary working environments for our production and sales staff. Additionally, we are placing the highest priority on the quality of products provided to our customers and dedicating efforts towards ensuring uniform quality by manualizing the production process of all products. Lastly, we continuously inform our customers regarding the optimal methods to store our products. For example, we make sure to apply the ‘must be refrigerated’ sticker on our summer season product, ‘Cool Bread.’ For customers who are traveling long distances, we also provide cooling packs and cold insulation material so that they are able to enjoy our products at their best.
Kim Mi-ae, Manager at Baskin Robbins, Banpo Seorae Village Store
▷Baskin Robbins, Banpo Seorae Village Store: The Banpo Seorae Village store opens an hour earlier than other locations to provide top-quality services to our customers, and we dedicate the optimal preparation time so that we are able to greet our customers under perfect conditions. The storage and disposal of products and food materials are handled under thorough hygiene control according to our designated manual. We also conduct elaborate sanitary inspections and service training for our employees so that customers can experience tastier products and highly-satisfying services.
Jeon Hyun-sook, Manager at Dunkin’ Live, Gangnam Main Store
▷Dunkin’ Live, Main Store: From hot sandwiches to coffee or beverages made freshly at the store, we make sure that we meticulously follow the designated manual. This is due to the fact that minor changes can lead to huge differences in taste, whether the change is in the oven temperature or amount of milk. All of our employees study the manual in advance to ensure the uniform quality of services, while we also endeavor to conduct thorough hygiene management so that our customers can enjoy our delicious products in a safe and clean environment.
On the Future of Quality-first Management
Each organization of SPC Group is consistently creating a detailed foundational blueprint with regard to our vision for the future, as well as the goal of quality management in the present. This daring spirit and innovation, aiming for a better future than settling for the present, allowed SPC Group to become the leading company that it is today. We looked at the visions set by organizations that are responsible for quality management in SPC Group.
Q. What are your core visions and plans with regard to quality management?
Lee Won-joon, Director of the Quality Management Department at BR Korea
▷Quality Management Department at BR Korea: We define quality as ‘the product value felt by the customer.’ In order to provide products and services that meet the expectations of customers, it will be essential to achieve consensus across the entire company with regard to what ‘quality-first’ means. At BR Korea’s Quality Management Department, we are working to establish a quality management system and devote our efforts towards establishing a culture where quality serves as the fundamental basis of decision-making. To this end, we aim to lead a company-wide quality management campaign to maximize outcomes of quality management. Secondly, we plan to strengthen the quality-oriented mindset training program for all employees and focus on securing and fostering the related professional capacity. Third, we will work to achieve the systematization of quality management by further advancing our quality management system. Lastly, we plan to expand our range of domestic and overseas quality certifications and construct a medium- and long-term quality roadmap to consistently enhance the brand’s credibility.
Kim Jin-eok, Director of the Quality Management Department at SPC Samlip
▷Quality Management Department at SPC Samlip: Since the implementation of quality management in earnest, the improvement rate for claims during the first half of this year reached 32% in comparison to the same period last year. This achievement was made possible because each production center and quality department focused their entire capacity for the single goal of improving claims. We will continue to do our best to reach the ultimate goal of ‘zero claims’ through consistent improvements. While using high-quality ingredients to make healthy products, we will continue to select items for priority management and consistently manage the evaluation system to maintain the highest standards of quality and taste.
Lee Kyung-bae, CEO of Secta9ine
▷Secta9ine: Secta9ine proclaims three visions to contribute to the goal of quality management pursued by SPC Group. First, we plan to further enhance the quality standards during the food manufacturing process through the smart factory project. We will work to enable the manufacturing of products with the optimal environment and recipes by introducing various IoT (Internet of Things) technology for the manufacturing process. Next, we will work to build a top-qualitydelivery service to allow customers to enjoy the highest standard of services when ordering products through online delivery. Lastly, we will derive significant insight by analyzing feedback from customers to contribute towards quality improvement.
‘We might be making millions of pastries, but each customer only needs one pastry to judge us.’ Sangmidang’s spirit of taking each and every baked good seriously aligns with SPC Group’s core management principle of ‘quality-first management’ for 2021. SPC Group was able to earn the love of customers throughout its long history due to its passionate and heartfelt efforts at every step of the way. SPC Group will continue to keep this spirit alive, while continuing to take on new challenges towards ensuring better quality, and present our customers across the globe with trust and joy.
