Case Study - Kitchen Range Foods using Mfg/Pro Implementation of MFG/PRO ERP system in the food industry

As with most things, taking the first step towards new working attitudes and procedures is the most difficult. Both as individuals and companies people find it hard to admit there may be room for improvement. This is especially difficult when you are already a success, but that is exactly the time to make those vital moves to ensure tomorrow's performance is as good as today's. Kitchen Range Foods is a case in point.

Jargon Warning If this case study uses terms with which you are unfamiliar, you can look them up in the Jargon Buster at http://www.bpic.co.uk/jargon.htm. For more details see Business Excellence (ISBN 0-952-8885-05) by Phil Robinson.

There can be few more demanding markets to service than that of speciality foods, in both product quality, originality and lead time, but since it's inception in 1971, Kitchen Range Foods has set and maintained the highest levels of performance. This is why it has become a major force in the field, counting many well known catering establishments and leading grocery chains amongst its customers. It is also a major supplier to the world's best known fast food exponents, McDonald's.

Kitchen Range Foods started as a family owned concern and employs just under 300 people in total across its three production facilities. All situated in the East Midlands, at Huntingdon, Bakewell and Bar Hill, each operation runs autonomously and is dedicated to separate product lines.
 
At Bar Hill, all the vegetable lines are produced, including stuffed and coated mushrooms, cauliflower, sweetcorn and broccoli along with vegetable burgers and cheese novelties such as Mozzarella Fingers and coated Brie Slices. The new green field site at Huntingdon is responsible for a wide range of potato products, featuring such items as Nobblies, seasoned mashed potato noisettes, Potato Thins, crispy coated potato wafers and potato based pizzas and waffles.

At Bakewell, all the sweet lines are produced, including American style donuts, a selection of fruit desserts and the renowned McDonald's apple pie.

Kitchen Range Foods has enjoyed success from the outset, as Chief Executive, Simon Lebus, son of the company's founder explained: "The speciality food market has grown consistently during the last twenty years with the number of outlets increasing steadily alongside the frequency with which people eat out".

"In addition the desire for wider choice and more unusual flavourings remains unabated, creating a climate for quality food producers to flourish. The emphasis however is firmly on the quality and it is for this reason that we at Kitchen Range never relax our drive for improvement in all areas".
 
It was this desire for continuous improvement that led to the decision in 1994 to install the comprehensive integrated manufacturing software system MFG/PRO and the formation of a project team to evaluate the available solutions. At about the same time, fortuitously, Simon Lebus heard about a seminar being held on the topic of Achieving Business Excellence and brought it to his colleagues' attention.

The event was one of a series run by MRP Ltd, leaders in the field of manufacturing education and consultancy and specialists in the best and latest techniques and methodologies for continuous improvement in manufacturing, from purchasing and supply through every aspect of production control to distribution, demand management and most importantly customer service.

"All we heard at the seminar seemed to be exactly in line with our plans at Kitchen Range", says Simon Lebus, "It also made us realise that what we wanted to achieve required far more than simply selecting and implementing a good computer system. We needed to educate all our key players to understand the whole concept, detail the objectives and define performance measures to accurately monitor our progress".

The project team chosen was cross functional, with representatives from finance, production, purchasing and logistics, two of whom were full time. Denise Fassler, from the finance department, became the full time project leader.

To support this, a top level steering committee was set up, headed by Simon Lebus, then Managing Director of the Bakewell operation where the project was initiated. It was completed by Mike Ellison, Divisional Operations Director and David Parsons, Divisional Finance Director, These were further supported by visits from Mike Salmon, Managing Director of MRP Ltd in a consulting capacity to clarify areas of contention and assist with problem solving.

Weekly review meetings were held between the project team and the Steering Committee to keep the project on course. The meetings were not as successful as they should have been as the steering committee did not question and probe so the plans were often disjointed.

Twenty one key users were identified and they, along with the project team, attended all the relevant external courses, as a result of which a variety of internal activities were put in place, including education sessions, and weekly bulletins, to ensure the whole workforce was brought up to speed and kept informed of progress. "It was important", says Denise Fassler, "that everyone understood the aims of our Business Excellence Programme, as we named it, and believed that it belonged to the business as a whole and each of them individually, not to the project team". Simon Lebus feels this was a great success as he sees enthusiasm for Business Excellence throughout all areas of the business.

Getting the timing right for education is always difficult, for instance Denise attended the Implementors course about 6 months before she was appointed project leader.  She also believed they should have asked the people who attended courses to make presentations on their return.

During this phase, software selection had been progressing and a decision had been reached to implement MFG/PRO (now re-branded Global Enterprise Edition), one of the most respected manufacturing solutions on the market at that time, supplied by Minerva Industrial Systems (now Maxima) .  Here too the project team and functional managers enjoyed the benefits of system training and workshops to familiarise them with the product and its application to Kitchen Range Foods.

Many people helped the implementation. MRP Ltd has a thriving base of experienced users. This was of immense benefit. "During the early days of the project our phones were red hot as opinions were sought and advice given by companies who have successfully negotiated the implementation trauma", says Denise Fassler. She continues, "We visited various Business Excellence companies, including Wrigleys, Norbar Torque Tools, Courtaulds Socks and F.W. Talbot all of whom were incredibly willing to share their experiences and help us learn from their mistakes".  Denise felt these visits were very importance. The Minerva consultant appointed to the project was also very helpful.

A major issue at Kitchen Range was eliminating the duplication of information. There was a plethora of departmental software packages on a selection of databases which led to dissention, confusion, time and paper wastage. A golden rule of MRPII and Business Excellence is that the whole business works to one set of figures and one master plan, arrived at through the Sales Operations Planning Process and held on one database. Agreeing this basic information was the key to success for the whole project. Now every department knows the correct procedures and working processes, whilst MFG/PRO provides the integrated software technology to hold all the information and make all the necessary transactions and calculations required to maintain accuracy.

Another important priority was involving suppliers in the process. An education session was developed, the first presentation was attended by twenty five key suppliers and received with encouraging enthusiasm and this process was repeated to all significant vendors as part of a full vendor "partnership" programme. This was seen as another key element to the success of the project.  Kitchen Range Foods had never used vendor schedules before so it was vital that vendors knew what to expect.

On January 2nd 1996, after just about a year of intensive work, education and training Kitchen Range's Bakewell Division cutover to their new ways of working. As for the results, Denise Fassler and her project team colleagues could certainly show an instant reduction in working hours and increase in dreamless sleep and Simon Lebus, now Chief Executive, is certain Kitchen Range is on track for even greater success.

Looking back on the project now, Denis can see areas for improvement that would have made the project even more successful and will be useful for other companies implementing planning systems. Kitchen Range Foods did not do enough education. The 21 key users who were educated were not able to get right down to the root of the business. Also, the conference room pilots were not thorough enough. More time was needed and a better quality of data to really make them effective. It would have been better to have a smaller quantity of accurate data that a large amount of poor and incomplete data.

The above meant that the project team had too much to do in the 2-3 months after going live. They were the only ones who knew the whole story.

Overall, Kitchen Range Foods is a fine example of British manufacturing management getting it right. So many times companies sit on their laurels and only take action to implement new and better methodologies when the profits fall and the competition moves into their market. Kitchen Range was already a tremendously successful business, it had won a Management Today Best Factory Award in 1994, was expanding its product range and customer base and experiencing 20% year on year growth. But the top team knew standing still is not enough. They had the desire to strive continually for improvement and were willing to change as necessary to achieve it. They have good products, good people and a winning attitude, in fact all the ingredients for success.