Page 427 - Operations Strategy

402 case stuDy 6 • Developing ‘savory rosti-crisps’ at DreDDo Dan’s
was considered too great. Second, extruding the mixture into baking moulds while
maintaining microbiological integrity (dairy products are difficult to handle) would
require new extrusion technology. Third, the product would need to be packaged in a
material that both reflected its brand image but also kept the product fresh through its
shelf life. Existing packaging materials were unlikely to provide sufficient shelf life. The
first of these problems had, more or less, been solved in PJT’s development laboratories.
The second two problems now seemed less formidable because of a number of recent
technological breakthroughs made by equipment suppliers and packaging manufactur-
ers. This had convinced the company that Orlando was worth significant investment
and it had been given priority development status by the company’s board. Even so, it
was not expected to come to the market for another two years and was seen by some as
potentially the most important new product development in the company’s history.

the project team

Immediately after the board’s decision, Monica had accepted responsibility to move
the development forward. She decided to put together a dedicated project team to over-
see the development. ‘It is important to have representatives from all relevant parts of the
company. Although the team will carry out much of the work themselves, they will still need
the cooperation and the resources of their own departments. So, as well as being part of the
team, they are also gateways to expertise around the company.’ The team consisted of repre-
sentatives from marketing, the development kitchens (laboratories), PGT’s technology
centre (a development facility that served the whole group, not just the snack divi-
sion), packaging engineers, and representative from the division’s two manufacturing
plants. All but the manufacturing representatives were allocated to the project team on
a full-time basis. Unfortunately, manufacturing had no one who had sufficient process
knowledge and who could be spared from their day-to-day activities.

Development objectives

Monica had tried to set the objectives for the project in her opening remarks to the
project team when they had first come together. ‘We have a real chance here to develop an
offering that not only will have major market impact, but will also give us a sustainable com-
petitive advantage. We need to make this project work in such a way that competitors will find
it difficult to copy what we do. The formulation is a real success for our development people,
and as long as we figure out how to use the new extrusion method and packaging material,
we should be difficult to beat. The success of Orlando in the marketplace will depend on our
ability to operationalise and integrate the various technical solutions that we now have access
to. The main problem with this type of offering is that it will be expensive to develop and yet,
once our competitors realise what we are doing, they will come in fast to try and out-innovate
us. Whatever else we do we must ensure that there is sufficient flexibility in the project to allow
us to respond quickly when competitors follow us into the market with their own ‘me-too’ prod-
ucts. We are not racing against the clock to get this to market, but once we do make a decision
to launch we will have to move fast and hit the launch date reliably. Perhaps most important,
we must ensure that the crisps are 200 per cent safe. We have no experience in dealing with
the microbiological testing which dairy-based food manufacture requires. Other divisions of
PJT do have this experience and I guess we will be relying heavily on them’ (Monica Allen).

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