Font Salem faces the challenge of boosting R&D project management
The company, part of the Damm Group, is the leading manufacturer in Spain and Portugal of private label (MDD) beers, soft drinks and water. It works with all retailers in both countries, as well as with the most prominent international ones. Font Salem is committed to innovation and creativity, and offers clients its strong R&D capabilities as a differentiating value in its business segment. A sector shaped by a new consumer pattern that demands constant novelty, wide variety and quality, as well as healthier products that are respectful of the environment.
Its R&D department receives more than 4,000 new project requests (SNP) per year, mainly from the commercial department.
4,000 requests per year | The challenge
Font Salem aims to always provide its customers with maximum reliability and the highest chance of success. In its continuous effort to maintain high quality standards across all products and services, the company identified the need to improve its new R&D project management system.
Specifically, Font Salem needed a single tool capable of:
- supporting the work of multiple departments,
- avoiding the entry of inaccurate or incomplete data,
- preventing process jumps and organisational silos,
- providing a global view of the project for all stakeholders.
As the company states on its website: “We like challenges.” And to tackle this one, Font Salem has relied on MAVAL as its technology partner for the development and implementation of a solution to manage new R&D projects.
MAVAL helps digitalise Font Salem’s R&D | The solution
We like challenges too—and this industry is not unfamiliar to us. As Siemens Partners specialised in the Food & Beverage sector, we have more than 15 years of experience implementing Opcenter RD&L—the software Siemens designed for the digital transformation of R&D.
This software provides, among other modules, a single platform to collect and manage the specifications of each new project, ensuring that once approved, manufacturing and commercialisation errors are prevented.
The solution brings the work of all teams under a single umbrella, facilitating cross-department communication. It ensures data reliability, avoiding errors from the beginning, and establishes guided workflows to ensure on-time delivery. Finally, it provides global visibility of projects and becomes a single repository of information, helping optimise time in new developments.
Digital transformation
Digital technology adoption has been a constant at Font Salem. This proposal from MAVAL therefore represents one more step on a journey that was already underway. These days, we are working side by side with their team to implement this solution to help them continue delivering on their value commitment to customers: innovation and creativity.