Change is constant. New requirements drive formulation, manufacturing, and packaging changes. Supplier changes result in new ingredient properties, recipe modifications, and revised labeling. Regulatory changes can impact formulation, manufacturing, labeling and marketing claims. When change happens, knowing the full impact avoids unexpected, costly, and risky consequences. The ability to quickly and effectively consider change requests minimizes lost market opportunities.

Some common issues are:

• HIGH VOLUME - The subtlest of changes can impact many factors which have wide ranging consequences. Regular change requests generate a large volume of questions, all of which must be thoroughly reviewed and competently answered.
• COMPLEXITY - Ingredient properties, formulation, manufacturing processes, and regulatory requirements are highly interrelated, making it difficult to determine all impacts of a change. Manually assessing potential risks is a lengthy and error-prone process.
• POOR COLLABORATION - Effective cross-functional collaboration is critical to complete understanding of a change's impact. Collaboration tools often incorporate complex interfaces which limit or slow valuable input from key areas such as sales, marketing, manufacturing, and suppliers.
• LACK OF RESOURCES - Market leadership requires both agility and responsiveness. Opportunities are missed when analysis takes too long and when there are limited resources to consider all requests.

Fast and effective change management is possible with the following strategies:

1. Utilize a central product knowledge base for complex decision support.
2. Manage change requests through automated workflows to maximize both process efficiency and effectiveness.
3. Use role-based interfaces to facilitate access to the change management process.
4. Integrate the change management process with enterprise applications, such as ERP/MRP systems, for rapid and accurate implementation of approved changes.
5. Track and monitor processes to develop best practices.

The benefits of taking this approach include:

• BETTER DECISION QUALITY - With access to a complete product knowledge base, executives can make fully informed decisions.
• FASTER CHANGE REQUEST PROCESSING - Automated process workflows facilitate collaboration and quicker decision making while reducing both errors and risk.
• HIGHER VOLUME HANDLING - More requests can be handled with fewer resources, resulting in lower costs, reduced risk and less lost opportunity.
• BEST PRACTICES - Process monitoring helps spot bottlenecks and develop ongoing improvements to the decision making processes.
• AUDITABILITY - All decision related information can be archived to provide an auditable record. Future decisions can draw from past experiences to improve the decision making success.

Lascom CPG has been used by food manufacturers to substantially improve their change management processes. Lascom CPG's advanced knowledge base and automated workflow engine enable fast and informed decision making. Management has an unparalleled opportunity to monitor the process and develop best practices.