Rich Products Corp., the nation’s largest family-owned food company, has chosen Optiva from Formation Systems and will implement the product development software at its facilities world-wide.
Optiva is a suite of software that helps large, global-based manufacturers accelerate their product development process. Optiva consists of integrated modules that comprehensively cover the product development process — from product definition through product design to manufacturing. With its central database repository, productivity tools, and workflow functionality, Optiva greatly improves the productivity of product development teams throughout the enterprise.
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“We knew what we needed,” said Anne Schneider, Associate Director of Bakery Research and team leader for this implementation at Rich’s. “We wanted a powerful, computerized tool. Our project team outlined our requirements, and we searched throughout the industry. Formation Systems met our needs with a solution that mapped to our business requirements.”
Rich’s will implement Optiva’s Workbench, along with the Workflow, Specifications, Labeling, Guidelines and Restrictions, Testing, and Claims modules.
“Optiva gives us a central information repository. That will improve our product development lifecycle by giving us access to the right information, and eliminates extensive searching, re-searching and manually re-entering massive amounts of data in separate systems. It will significantly shorten our product development time,” explained Ms. Schneider.
“Our whole technical community – R&D, packaging, operations and manufacturing — will have access to the same critical information,” she said noting that this will free up staff to do more innovative product development.
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By GlobalData“Rich’s recognized that Optiva will leverage information technology to improve the effectiveness of the way new products are developed and ultimately manufactured,” said Peter Shields, President and CEO of Formation Systems. “Consumer satisfaction grows as new products can be developed in the shortest possible time and manufactured with a high level of quality and consistency, and this ultimately fuels sales growth and increases shareholder value in today’s competitive marketplace.”
About Rich’s
Founded in 1945, Buffalo, New York-based Rich Products is one of the United State’s largest family-owned food companies, with annual sales of $1.4 billion and more than 7,000 associates worldwide.
Rich’s has regional offices, subsidiaries and manufacturing plants located in 53 countries including Canada, Mexico, India, South Africa, China and Italy.
Rich’s is known around the world as a leading supplier and solutions provider to the food service and in-store bakery segments, specializing in bakery and dessert products and field technical support services.
About Formation Systems
Formation customers include large global Fortune 500 companies such as, The Coca-Cola Company, GE Plastics, Akzo Nobel, The Hartz Mountain Corporation, Kerry Group plc, Gillette, RPM and The Valspar Corporation. Formation’s solutions offer customers high return, low risk and quick time to benefit.
Formation’s value proposition is to help customers serve their customers better by bringing more products to market faster, at lower cost and with higher quality.
The company, founded in 1995, is privately held and headquartered in Southborough, MA. For more information on Optiva, our newest modules, or Formation Systems, visit the corporate web site at www.formationsystems.com
Optiva and Formation are trademarks of Formation Systems Inc., Southborough, Massachusetts, USA.
