| Food & Ingredients | | | Educ. Serv. | | | Tech Serv. | | | Market Serv. | | | E-Commerce Serv. |
|---|
| Product Development Processes or Strategies | to Top |
There continues to be a change in the processes of product development. This may be due to a wide variety of reasons. One which may be influencial due to a variety of reasons is simply the change in business ownership, i.e. business mergers, acquisitions and diversiture. This generally defaults to a review of a companies organization. It may bring new ideas and ways of doing tasks. Employees may feel an increased imperative to be successful at the development tasks. In many instances, the company has a clearly defined expenditure/capital gains task that tells the developer of new products whether to make remakes, do a me to, line extensions, or a whole new creative product. In reviewing the various processes of new product development, increasingly the importance of the corporate objectives, strategies and operating plans are an integral part of the plan. To some extent this is reviewed by Meyer (1984) where he placed it as the first of eleven stages of successful new product development.
What are the five distinct phases or life cycles to a product. They are: the introductory period, heavily supported by promotions, in-store demonstrations, and couponing; 1 strong growth period, when first-time consumers are repeat-buying and more new consumers are being attracted. There is positive growth in sales. Growth continues as new markets are opened, but promotino and expansion are costly; a beginning decline in the growth of the sales volume. Growth is accelerating negatively; a period of stability, better described as a no-growth period of a stagnating market. However, product development is increasing important to a food company as the product life cycle is shorter. The core of the faster approach is as follows:
Rosenau (1990) says the evidence for this shortened life cycle is the actions taken by practitioners; the judgments of knowledgeable preople and research data. The reason for this is likely due to changes in technology and communication.
| Rosenau, 1990: p. 60 |
It is important to define the successful processes involved in product development. A defined process should increase the quality and speed of the product development effort and cut down on costs. Also, importantly, a process will permit one to identify potential bottle necks. Just what is the process?
Many authors continue to point to factors that will improve the opportunity for new product success. However, the concept of the actual successful product becomes more difficult to define in specific terms. It is certainly true that the development of a new product is complex and usually requires a team effort. However, the composition and interaction of the team varies considerably within an organization. That appears to be the crux of the difficulty in devising a specific model for all to use in the development of new food products. Important extraneous factors beyond the actual development of a food must be included in the model. This can be somewhat seen in the model reported by Meyer (1984). It includes the first step to be "Develop clear corporate objectives". Poolton and Barclay (1998) indicates the following general key factors in successful product development:
A review of processes reported for new product development would possibly lead to the following overall scheme for new food product development. Even if a process for new product development is selected and followed, there is still a the potential to have problems with manufacturing. Solving these problems can be achieved by using in the manufacturing process modelling to improve the product development process so as to improve product robustness and esure the correct specifications of materials and in-process controls. Joglekar (1999) discusses the mathematical modelling for this.
Poolton and Barclay (1998) has an excellent summary of the conceptional history of product development. From the discussion, it appears that success in product development is currently an amalogation of the 1950s approach of implementing technological or processing changes from a proactive R&D process to the 1960s and 1970s market driven new product development. This is a dual drive model which is based on core competencies (Katz, 1998) within the industry.
Product development is approached through a process of both recipe development and through an adaptation of a "brand" name recipe . The techniques of product development from both viewpoints is important. Swientek (1997Mid-April) indicates that their product development does not exist in a vacuum. They have three principles of: defend, extend and build. That is product development includes defending a product through brand protection, food safety, scientific and regulatory affairs, environmental management and consumer relations. James R. Behnke (senior vice president technology of Pillsbury) indicates that the "extend" area takes the solid coare and extend out from these core products. From this they can build on the product.
| Food Engineering recently indicated the importance of putting together fundamental consumer research, consumer yield analysis and product performance research to make a successful product. Consumer research is a expertise. Haun Food Design, Inc. shows by their listing of help in food product development. As their index indicates, development of a product to the point at which it is actually sold in the market place requires information on safety, quality control, marketing and a variety of other specialities. How does one maximize each aspect to get the product one wants. |
| There are many different strategies which have been purported to represent the pathway to a successful product. Some are relative simple such as that put forth by Harry Lawless (Anonymous, 1994) or Cornell. He essentially said that success in product development is simply an integration and overlap of fundamental consumer research, consumer yield analysis and product performance research. However, the proof of success is in the details of these three points. Dr. Lawless indicates that the use of the different aspects must be adjusted for each specific application. |
|
|
Pillsbury (Swientek, 1997Mid-April) feels that their success rate for products is the result of cross-functional business teams, innovation and diversity. They put different teams together and all work to solve a problem. The discussion of copartnering includes this collaboration of different parts of a company as well with other divisions and companies. Although there are many other approaches to food product development; however, this particular course will explore the process discussed by Meyer and by Pedi and Moesta(1993) will be initially discussed. |
|
He did feel that technical implmementation was the key for evaluation and development of products.
At the "fooddude.com" some of the strategies and thought processes required for food product development are plotted and described. The goal of this company is to assist producers and marketers of specialty food products.
Each of the processes start out with the idea. Generating ideas is difficult. At a recent workshop, Ann Price discussed processes to generate ideas.
Once an idea is generated, likely ingredients, packaging and even food engineering information and products will be needed to accessed to obtain optimum product quality. Anymore, access to suppliers is an important key to rapid product development. These supplies may have actually functional property information and may have information on market place. So You Wanna Be a Food Manufacturer and Food Manufacturing Resources
Food Strategy-UNL
Brands and Extensions
Consumer Information
Co-parterning
Optimization
Karlshamns advertised in Prepared Foods 160(3): 44 on the three dimensions of quality. They essentially were Karlshamns Food Ingredients PO Box 569, Columbus, OH 43216-0569.
Updated: Monday, August 27, 2007.
OSU Disclaimer.