"Case Study: Cadbury plc"

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"Infor PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) helps your business maximize profit by optimizing every stage of your product’s life from portfolio management to product development to ongoing maintenance and retirement."
Source : Infor

Resources Related to Case Study: Cadbury plc:

• Cadbury plc (Wikipedia)
• Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) (Wikipedia)

Case Study: Cadbury plc

About the company.

Cadbury plc, formerly Cadbury Schweppes plc, is the largest confectionery company in the world, ranked number one or number two in nearly half of the confectionery markets. Cadbury creates chocolate, gum, and candy brands such as Cadbury® Easter eggs, Trident®, Dentyne®, and Halls®. Since the demerger of its confectionery and Americas Beverages businesses, however, Cadbury still maintains its own beverage unit in Australia.

The Cadbury name has its origins stretching back nearly two centuries, when John Cadbury began selling cocoa and chocolate in Birmingham, England. Since then the business has expanded through organic and acquisition-led growth to operations in over 60 countries. Today people in almost every country around the world enjoy its products.  To learn more about the company, visit >www.cadbury.com.

With Infor, we reduced costs and time to market, and improved our response to consumer and customer queries. PHIL MORREALE, DIRECTOR OF TECHNICAL DATA MANAGEMENT, CADBURY PLC

Setting the strategy.

As Cadbury continued to add new company and product names to the corporate family, it realized the importance of effectively managing all technical data globally in order to produce, distribute, and sell its products with the goals of utilizing the full value of its intellectual property and reducing time to market. In doing so, the company needed to reduce risk and ensure compliance with government regulations.

In response, Cadbury launched a long-term program for efficiently managing its technical data, which involved storing data in a central repository, collaborating and sharing information, preventing reinvention of products in different locations, reorganizing and integrating materials on a technical basis, and addressing financial compliance and product compliance issues. The company turned to Infor for its formulation system to manage all technical data within a central repository Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system.

Getting business specific.

When Cadbury searched for a solution to enable optimal data management, it chose Infor PLM Optiva as its technical data management system for several reasons. Because the software enabled the design of high-quality processes at each stage of development throughout the product lifecycle, Cadbury knew it could effectively reduce risks and ensure regulatory compliance. Infor's solution also interfaced with Cadbury's chosen ERP system for centrally storing technical data. Finally, Infor PLM Optiva was capable of handling a broader range of data types than competitive systems.

Seeing results.

When the technical data management team at Cadbury began developing and maintaining procedures and protocols for data management, their objectives were threefold: to ensure data was managed throughout the product lifecycle; to develop and manage sustainable communities of practice that included science and technology, the supply chain, and marketing; and to develop and maintain collaboration with external organizations—vendors, industry and government groups, and academics.

With Infor's application, we ... greatly increased our knowledge of the environmental impacts of our packaging and products—a resounding success
PHIL MORREALE, DIRECTOR OF" TECHNICAL DATA MANAGEMENT, CADBURY PLC

Declares Phil Morreale, director of technical data management, "Our four key measures for determining success within this cross-functional, cross-business, and cross-product organization were the number of products with complete and authorized technical data documentation; the number of employees sharing information and knowledge routinely; website and Optiva usage; and the amount of data object rework due to inaccuracies. We were astounded by the rate at which we improved toward achieving our goals, and Infor's solution played a major role. In addition to Infor PLM Optiva's management of a wealth of diverse data, our employees were willing to use the system, which made much more data and knowledge transparent and useful."

Cadbury also was able to take advantage of cost and revenue synergies after implementation of the application.

Morreale adds, "Using Infor PLM Optiva, we reduced costs and time to market through reorganizing and integrating projects, by avoiding errors through improved data integrity, and by decreasing material obsolescence and duplication. We also improved our response to consumer and customer queries."

Other benefits resulted from implementation of the Infor PLM Optiva system and Cadbury's new business processes. According to Morreale, the two-pronged approach—a sound technical management process integrated with commercial processes and improved collaboration among all groups—reduced business risks and ensured strong regulatory compliance. "With Infor's application, we were able to develop a sound material and supplier approval process with regulatory checks and claims analysis, which greatly increased our knowledge of the environmental impacts of our packaging and products. That spelled a resounding success."

Doing business better.

As Cadbury looks for other ways to make additional process improvements, the company expresses confidence that Infor will remain a primary collaborator. In Morreale's words, "Infor's software has helped us tremendously in our efforts to reduce costs and time to market, as well as to deliver quality products that meet consumer preferences. Infor will continue to be an important guide as we move toward future business process enhancements."

About Infor.

Infor acquires and develops functionally rich software backed by thousands of domain experts and then makes it better through continuous innovation, faster implementation options, global enablement, and flexible buying options. In a few short years, Infor has become the third largest provider of business software. For additional information, visit www.infor.com.