Company

A-brand and PL food producer, with a large network of factories in Europe. Active in the Benelux with a total of 6 own factories and main supplier of supermarket chains, specialty stores and food service.

Situation

A very important objective was expressed to further increase the speed and success of innovations in the coming years, in order to become even more successful in the market. The existing NPD process was organized locally, without clear overall steering and no standaard in tools and templates. Gwynt has been asked to develop a new standard for the NPD process, removing the current bottlenecks and making innovation more effective and efficient.

Approach

Our team started with a quick scan of the existing NPD process in order to systematically identify all bottlenecks. Based on this, a harmonized and optimized NPD process has been developed, based on stage gate principles. In addition, clear roles and responsibilities have been determined, and a number of important tools and templates for actual process control have been developed. Gwynt subsequently provided support during the implementation to the organization.

Results

There is now much more control over the NPD process and departments do not work against each other, but rather work together to continuously improve. The introduction of stage gates within the NPD process ensures much better and supported decisions, including the assessment of the business case at an early stage. More ownership has arisen in the various departments through clear roles and responsibilities and a more project-based way of working.