Growing Pains

The 1960's saw the first pubic offering ofTyson's Foods (as it was known then), the 70s saw a name change (Tyson Foods Inc.) and entry into the Fortune 100; the 80s and 90s were decades of growth and acquisition. Needless to say this left the company with multiple legacy systems, and, as a result, Hal Carper, senior vice president research and development, says, "We have been sub-optimized in the ability to leverage formula and ingredients across multiple, compatible products."

 

Carper oversees development of new product ideas, which requires studying and evaluating new product potential and practicality. He coordinates and leads the initial stages of new product development, product modification, as well as supervises design changes in existing lines. Of course this involves multiple functions and materials and calls for an integrated and efficient process. Yet, Tyson did not have a single specifications and bill of materials (BOM) system, and the specifications and label process was manual, with paper moving (and getting hung up) from desk to desk. This led to the search for a solution that could enable electronic workflow.

 

Just prior to the RFP process, Carper says Tyson Foods enacted a significant change in how it manages major information systems (IS) projects. Previously, the business leaders presented their case to IS and then just waited for delivery. Now, the business leader has more responsibility and plays a more engaged role. He explains, "For example, I am the Executive Sponsor for product data management (PDM), which includes new product development (NPD), BOM, product lifecycle management (PLM) and specifications management. With this approach, I'm much more engaged with the project from start to finish than I would have been in the past. I recruited an aggressive, engaged steering committee for the project, meet almost every day with the project lead and business lead for the project, and take a very active role in driving adoption within the business. Even more importantly, I am actively engaged in ensuring that users throughout the business are satisfied with the tool. I believe this approach drives much improved results across the enterprise for our company."

 

Tyson employed a "very thorough" RFP process followed by vendor product demonstrations to make an initial cut. Carper says the internal Tyson team did an excellent job of specifying the company's needs and working with potential vendors to manage this process. They chose the Prodika solution from Agile, an Oracle company. He says, "Tyson Foods has an excellent strategic supply partner program. With Prodika, we will drive for even more effective supplier relationships and rationalization of ingredients leading to improved optimization of new and existing products."

 

Woven throughout the company's search for a PLM solution was the requirement that it reduce the time to bring a concept to life as a new product. Tyson Foods wants a wide, inclusive opening at the beginning of the funnel and the ability to rapidly screen and prioritize opportunities more rapidly than in the past. Carper says they have set specific goals for reduced phase time at major points in NPD, and will drive for even shorter times as users become proficient with the system. The expectation is that there will be more ideas entering the funnel, but a more rapid pruning and elimination of less appropriate projects sooner, allowing the business units and R&D to focus on the greatest opportunities sooner, thus a greater success rate. He states, "No matter what else is accomplished, I will view anything other than significantly reduced time to market as an overall failure."

 

According to Carper, unlike several of Prodika's other customers, Tyson Foods had several tools in place that were already working; the issue was that there wasn't a single tool across the Tyson enterprise. He explains, "I think because we already had something that worked, we were more demanding in the RFP and have been more demanding of what a tool must do."

 

Another particular need is confidentiality and Carper says that a great benefit of Prodika is the ability to share product information across the Tyson business units. However, some of its products and customer relationships are proprietary and so the opposite is needed. The company required a firewall for the information so that it is not broadly available across the enterprise. So far, the ability to share the information that Tyson Foods wants to share, and shelter information it doesn't, has been successful.

 

The company is early in the adoption, with another year to go before completion, but benefits have already been realized. Carper mentions a reduction in the time required to originate a new product in the system. "We have reduced our time for this process by 30 percent," he says, with the ultimate goal being a 60 percent reduction. Tyson Foods is counting on enterprise-wide adoption to create the foundation for such improved metrics. It also expects that data synchronization will be improved as the company moves to a single, real-time version of specs, BOM and product attributes.