The Quaker Oats Company is a producer of many ready-to-eat cereals such as Cap’n Crunch, Quaker Toasted Oatmeal, and Life, as well as a leader in the rice and pasta market with Rice-a-Roni, and Pasta Roni, and the sports drink arena with Gatorade. Quaker had over 5 billion dollars in sales for 1996 and employs over 15,000 people. More than 85% of Quaker’s retail brands hold the number-1 or number-2 position in their respective product categories. So when Quaker finds a gap in a market, they know how to fill it. When Quaker saw a need to better utilize their specification information in order to reduce costs and development cycles, they called IMAS.
Problem
Their cumbersome and outdated specification system was not integrated enterprise wide which resulted in an overload of information requests from various divisions and departments.
An inadequate routing and approval process, which impacted the product development cycles.
Solution
Xspec’s flexible, user-friendly interface permitted the various departments quick and easy access to all relevant information from a single "workbench" environment.
The Routing and Approval module allowed effortless management of the approval workflow.
Benefits
Accessibility of information to various departments resulted in a reduced workload. Furthermore, the user-friendliness shortened the learning curve, thus increasing productivity and reducing overhead.
The Routing and Approval module enabled Quaker to track and expedite the specification approval process.
Using similar products as templates for new product development, Quaker reduced time to market by up to 50%.
If you would like to utilize the information
within your specifications, contact IMAS at 1-800-XSPECIT.
