Creating New Foods. The Product Developer's Guide - The organisation of the Product Development project

2.2 PROJECT PLAN

The first step is to write an outline plan for the project. As shown in Figure 2.1, planning the product development project is directly related to the company policy and therefore to the people determining the company policy.

Figure 2.1 Planning the product development project

PROJECT PLANNING		COMPANY ENVIRONMENT
Business Strategy		Company policy

Product Strategy

Product Development Programme

Specific Product Development Project
Project Aim
Project Constraints		Company conditions
Project Objectives		Decisions to be made
		Outcomes for decisions
Project Activities		Activities for outcomes
Project Techniques		Resources
		Timing
		Company knowledge
Project Plan		Planning methods
Project Management		Management systems

A company policy which states that company growth is through amalgamations and takeovers is not much interested in product development and is not going to provide much resource for product development; a company policy to launch a major innovation every year is the opposite. Company policy is also directed by the environment, the resources available to the company and the knowledge in the company.

In Case Study 2, the company has a policy to change milk from a single commodity product into multiple consumer products, and on this policy were based the specific product development projects, some based on changing the packaging and some involving both packaging and product changes.

Case Study 2
Reintroducing Milk to Consumers

Dean Foods Co. is hoping to turn milk into a cash cow. In an effort to pump new life into an old product, Dean is adding new packaging, new products and a $30 million marketing campaign to convince people that milk can be a cool beverage.

Just as Birds Eye did with frozen vegetables, Dean wants to make milk something more than a cheap commodity. One way is to combine new products with clever packaging. For example, the company is introducing a blue-ice freezer pack with six-packs of milk so people can carry cold milk to work or school. And six-packs, pints and quarts are packaged in bottles called chugs: lightweight plastic designed like old-fashioned milk bottles but with resealable twist-off caps.

Adding more flavours in more places also helps, as brands such as Tropicana and Snapple have found with juice and tea drinks. Dean’s chocolate milk in new chug bottles has enjoyed brisk sales. It plans to introduce strawberry within the next few weeks and possibly banana after that.

'Dean is offering consumers choice and convenience,' says Adri Boudewyn, chief executive of the California Milk Advisory Board which represents farmers.

The new packaging which was introduced last year allows it to charge higher prices. The chug concept also has won the company new customers in the rapidly consolidating supermarket industry. Dean's milk volume increased 5%, an enviable growth rate in an industry marked by stagnation. The milk push comes as consumption has been declining for much of the past five years, although last year saw a slight uptick, thanks to the popular 'Got Milk?' ad campaign by Dairy Management Inc. Dean hopes to increase the consumption not just by packaging changes, but by distributing chugs to places like convenience stores and school-vending machines.

(Source: Balu, R. (1998) 'Dean Foods attempts to reintroduce milk to consumers', in Wall Street Journal, 26 March B3. Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal © 1998 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.)

The team takes the general project description defined in the product strategy and the product development strategy, and determines the aim and constraints for the specific project. After top management confirmation of aim and constraints and agreement on the decisions and therefore the expected outcomes at the various stages, the team can identify the project's objectives and activities.

The team plans the project - describing the early activities in some detail and the later activities in general headings, but defining clearly the intended outcomes of the different activities and the decisions to be made. There is agreement on the timing of the project and the resources available, and the team then decides on the techniques to be used for the various activities.

The plan details how the project is to be managed in the team, and by top management; both need to be clearly shown so that the responsibilities of each are known and acknowledged by both groups. Planning can vary from a sheet of paper in a small company, to a complex report for a major innovation for a large company, but the most important factor is that everyone understands the project and its organisation, and agrees to the plan.

Think Break 2.1
Project plan: recognising nutritional value

The company policy is the directing influence on the plan for the product development project as can be seen in Case Study 2. As the years have gone by nutrition has become an important part of the policy of dairy companies.

Discuss how the product development team can develop an overall product development plan based on recognising and improving the nutritional value of milk, in particular identifying the needs of different groups of consumers.

Visit a supermarket and identify the dairy products being sold for their nutritional value. How would the range of products already on the market affect your product development plan?

PROJECT AIM, OBJECTIVES & CONSTRAINTS

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Creating New Foods. The Product Developer's Guide. Copyright © Chartered Inst. of Environmental Health.
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