Vantage Point: What glue is holding together your innovation process?
By Daniel J. Staresinic, Senior Director, Consumer Products and Life Sciences
Siemens PLM Software, Inc.
Consumer goods manufacturers must increase their mastery of the process of innovation to turn more ideas into successful, new product introductions. Bringing consumer-meaningful innovation to market is a collaborative, cross-functional effort that demands both speed and accuracy. A consumer packaged goods (CPG) or food and beverage (F&B) manufacturer is managing, on average, over 3,000 SKUs1 with as many as 22 specifications associated with each and every SKU.
In many organizations it is "human glue" that brings an initiative to market. It is the heroic efforts of the cross-functional team, or sometimes an individual, like the project manager who places hundreds of follow up phone calls and emails in an attempt to keep all of the deliverables on track and the overall plan balanced. And it takes a committed group of people to make sure the resulting specifications are aligned with the brand intent and the market requirements and are feasible to execute in the manufacturing process. With hundreds of decision nodes in the process, and stakeholders located around the globe, it is no wonder that mistakes happen that lead to delayed launches and new products that do not meet their financial targets.
A commonly attempted first step is to the establishment of an innovation portal -- a Web site that acts as an entry point to various software applications the organization is using for product innovation. While the browser may give the appearance of bringing together all the pertinent data and information for new product development, in reality there remain silos of uncoordinated data, leading to duplication and errors. For example, you may find a formula and recipe residing in one software application, and the major list of ingredients that prints on the packaging in a graphic design application. If a change is made in the formula specification, but not given to the package designer, the product may ship with an inaccurate label. And then there is the further complication of changing all the label variations, for different sizes or flavors, different languages, different regulatory markings, local factory ingredient variations. Not surprisingly, incorrect labeling, according to the FDA, is the cause of up to 68 percent of product recalls2.
Siemens PLM Software, Inc.
Consumer goods manufacturers must increase their mastery of the process of innovation to turn more ideas into successful, new product introductions. Bringing consumer-meaningful innovation to market is a collaborative, cross-functional effort that demands both speed and accuracy. A consumer packaged goods (CPG) or food and beverage (F&B) manufacturer is managing, on average, over 3,000 SKUs1 with as many as 22 specifications associated with each and every SKU.
In many organizations it is "human glue" that brings an initiative to market. It is the heroic efforts of the cross-functional team, or sometimes an individual, like the project manager who places hundreds of follow up phone calls and emails in an attempt to keep all of the deliverables on track and the overall plan balanced. And it takes a committed group of people to make sure the resulting specifications are aligned with the brand intent and the market requirements and are feasible to execute in the manufacturing process. With hundreds of decision nodes in the process, and stakeholders located around the globe, it is no wonder that mistakes happen that lead to delayed launches and new products that do not meet their financial targets.
A commonly attempted first step is to the establishment of an innovation portal -- a Web site that acts as an entry point to various software applications the organization is using for product innovation. While the browser may give the appearance of bringing together all the pertinent data and information for new product development, in reality there remain silos of uncoordinated data, leading to duplication and errors. For example, you may find a formula and recipe residing in one software application, and the major list of ingredients that prints on the packaging in a graphic design application. If a change is made in the formula specification, but not given to the package designer, the product may ship with an inaccurate label. And then there is the further complication of changing all the label variations, for different sizes or flavors, different languages, different regulatory markings, local factory ingredient variations. Not surprisingly, incorrect labeling, according to the FDA, is the cause of up to 68 percent of product recalls2.
Product lifecycle management (PLM) software is the technology platform that unifies the innovation process. As the single source of product and process data, PLM enables confidence throughout the organization because it brings speed and, accuracy to the product innovation process. Different from a portal approach, different from a series of point solutions, and different from transaction-oriented software like ERP, Siemens PLM Software provides a dynamic, relational backbone, globally scalable, for the management of the CPG F&B innovation process.
The dozens of artifacts that encompass a new product's development -- things like formula specification, packaging, regulatory requirements, health and safety issues, multiple languages, warehousing, transportation, claims and even variations of the product photography -- must all be accurate, linked, and accessible to the product's stakeholders. Consider all the knowledge that the organization generates with each and every initiative. How is that valuable knowledge being captured and re-applied to future projects? PLM provides the organizational memory and the process architecture to enable this -- it is the "new glue" for the innovation process.
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1 Siemens PLM Software and AMR Research, primary market research, May 2009
2 U.S. FDA Report Summarizing Food Recalls, 1999-3003, August 2004
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel J. Staresinic, Senior Director, Consumer Products and Life Sciences
Siemens PLM Software, Inc.
For 25 years Dan Staresinic has been involved in the development and manufacture of consumer oriented products with companies including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Motorola. His leadership responsibilities have spanned many product lines and have included global new product initiatives in mature and developing markets around the world. He carries a number of professional certifications in process improvement methodologies. He joined Siemens PLM Software Inc. in 2005, where he leads global strategy and marketing activities in the consumer products and life sciences industries. For more information contact [email protected].
Daniel J. Staresinic, Senior Director, Consumer Products and Life Sciences
Siemens PLM Software, Inc.
For 25 years Dan Staresinic has been involved in the development and manufacture of consumer oriented products with companies including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Motorola. His leadership responsibilities have spanned many product lines and have included global new product initiatives in mature and developing markets around the world. He carries a number of professional certifications in process improvement methodologies. He joined Siemens PLM Software Inc. in 2005, where he leads global strategy and marketing activities in the consumer products and life sciences industries. For more information contact [email protected].