The product development process at … Mars

“It’s like being an anthropologist,” says Jerome. “We even develop algorithms – psychographic and ethnographic – to understand the target.”

“The place of consumption” — Do consumers eat the product on the run, in the car, at home or at work? Understanding the ultimate disposition of the product can greatly affect the up-front thinking on it.

At the very beginning, an Activity Management Project qualifies ideas with respect to both marketability and to resources. “This gets engineering and supply chain involved at the very beginning, so we can see everything that will be needed to produce a new idea,” says Jerome.

The pipeline of new ideas at Mars Snackfood is always full, he say. It’s a matter of picking out the best ideas to pursue. The AMP meets regularly, so people and their ideas vie for places on the agenda.

Then comes the Development Quality Plan. Representatives of all job functions formally get together to discuss the product under study. At this point packaging and quality also are brought into the process. If the process continues successfully, prototypes are produced in the pilot lab and the product may well be launched.
It’s all very cross-functional, and it seems to be working. Some of the same candy-shell and printing technology behind M&M’S begat fruit-flavored Skittles. Build in some manufacturing flexibility and add Internet information technology and you get My M&M’S. Put the same personalized messages on foil wrappers and you’re eating My Dove. What to do with all this flavanol research? Create a new line of health-food chocolates: CocoaVia. Then make it decadent via the Dove brand. Next, make it liquid, as in a new Dove beverage expected to debut in the coming weeks.

R&D, marketing, manufacturing and more job functions all share the credit for keeping the pipeline full.

Note to Plant Ops

One of the keys to Mars Inc.’s success over the years has been its belief in the competitive edge that superior manufacturing and technological know-how provide. Mars has cross-trained its managers for decades, bringing along employees with potential for management through a succession of promotions from R&D posts and shift management to plant management and high-level operations and engineering posts. The mix of product understanding, manufacturing experience and technical understanding pave the way to top management positions.

Manufacturing has a great deal of input on the product development process at Mars Snackfood U.S. One key element of manufacturing’s involvement is food quality and safety. “We have a (cross-functional) team in the organization that makes sure that any change in processing or recipes goes through a rigorous review process,” says Harald Emberger, vice president of supply chain.

The cross-functional grooming of Mars personnel makes them “good at understanding the product from both ends,” the supply chain head notes. Engineers understand the R&D perspective and, conversely, R&D personnel grasp the engineers’ concerns.