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FRITO-LAY
twin page 23

Mate. I3reakage became a hot issue at one point. Typi-
cally, each manager had defended his own turf on the
issue. Plant managers blamed logistics for breakage, lo-
gistics blamed the plant for poor quality containers and
packaging. Sales, which included retail unit servicers,
was blamed by both for the rough treatment of items at
point of display. By working together and by using CPS,
this cross functional group discovered ways they could
help solve this problem. For example, they made changes
in the way that products were stacked in the delivery
trucks, and in the way products were stacked within
containers. Both solutions were successful.

Source: Telephone discussion with Frank Prince, partner, Involvement Systems, Dallas,
Texas, September 1993; Marc Hequet, "Making Creativity Training Creative," Training
February 1992, p. 45; Cathy Handley, "Why Frito-Lay Is Crackling with New Ideas,"
Purchasing, May 3, 1990, pp. 84A2-84A5.

Generating Alternatives

Generating alternatives involves cataloging
the known options (a rational act) and gen-
erating additional options (a rational and
intuitive act). It is in this stage that most of

the creativity processes described in later
chapters are very helpful.

To the extent that you can clearly identify
and formulate useful options, you can
maximize the chances that a problem will be
solved satisfactorily. The purpose of generating
alternatives is to ensure that you reach the selection stage of
CPS with enough potential solutions. Creative techniques
for generating alternatives can help you develop many more
possible solutions than you might come up with otherwise.

Generating alternatives is partly a rational and partly an intuitive

exercise. It's rational in that you follow a series of steps. It's
intuitive in that these steps are designed to unleash your in-
tuitive powers so that you can use them effectively. In this
( stage, you should be more interested in the quantity of new

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