A day in the life of a Quality Assurance Head

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By Prachi Verma

A typical workday for Somesh Dahale, head of quality assurance at Yum! Brands, involves ensuring quality and keeping it consistent every day, every hour and every minute.

Somesh Dahale
Job Description: Responsible for ensuring quality of products

His job profile is to keep consumers attracted to a bucket of chicken—the KFC Super Chicken, to be precise.

A typical workday for Somesh Dahale, head of quality assurance at Yum! Brands, involves ensuring quality and keeping it consistent every day, every hour and every minute.

It starts at 8:30 am
The first hour goes in catching up with news. “I also read up on what’s happening in the Yum! World in this hour.” For the past few days, Dahale has been tracking news on the local food regulator, which is working on a ‘one-nation, one-food law’. This may bring in greater ease of doing business in the Indian food industry, he said.

In India, Yum! sources chicken from suppliers like Venky’s, Godrej and Suguna. “We frequently cond ..

In India, Yum! sources chicken from suppliers like Venky’s, Godrej and Suguna. “We frequently conduct audits and inspection visits at our suppliers’ poultry farms and factories to ensure the best quality is maintained throughout, until it reaches your plate.” Next, he goes hopping around the office. “I also utilise this time to meet quality leads of peer brand group, i.e. Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, to see the developments at their end.”

Before breaking for lunch, he connects with his regional team members in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Gurgaon, and then with those in international markets, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Out of every ten days, Dahale will be travelling for at least four, to keep a check on suppliers — there were no travel plans, though, on the day ET met him in his office at 10 am. His job here involves identifying suppliers, educating them to qualify for the Yum! audit and, finally, assessing them through audits after four to eight months. International calls are made in the second half of the day, where discussions typically revolve around food safety standards “we need to maintain with our franchise partners and suppliers”.

Around 3 pm, he sits with colleague Jayasree, who leads public affairs, to catch up on developments with food regulators. His discussions with Jayasree help Dahale set objectives in line with the roadmap of authorities.

For example, the company recently launched a street food vendor training programme in Tamil Nadu. “We’re also closely working with them to set for industry best practices such as ‘management of quality of oil’,” he said.

Around 4:15 pm , the QA head spends time with the operations & restaurant excellence teams, and help them understand their issues on store designs, operational practices and training plans. “As a company, we are maniacal about our chicken.

From farm to fork, KFC chicken goes through 34 quality checks before landing on the consumer’s plate,” he said, while wrapping up work at 5:30 pm.

Article Source: indiatimes