In order to implement a diagnostics model design, we have chosen Kettle Brand Chips – an all-natural chips company which first started in 1982 with a motto of ‘real chips made with real ingredients by real people’. The company is located in San Francisco, California and operations in this region is looked after by the Head Manager Mr. Jace Marstiller. An interview with Mr. Marstiller was conducted in order to explore the opportunities and issues facing a particular area of their organization.
Issue as described by the Manager interviewed.
The major issue that concerns snacking industries is the delicate relationship between the taste and health safety of their products. In the recent years, consumers have shown an increased preference for healthy snacks with low fat and oil content, and the trend has emerged partly due to the increased risk of obesity across the country. IFT.com published a data from Packaged Facts in which the US sales of salty snacks has steadily increased 3.5%, and predicted to reach $22 billion in 2015. Other healthy categories such as tortilla and tostada chips have sold for a total of $5.2 billion. Mr. Martiller of Kettle Brand chips is confident about the market potential of packaged snacks that are both healthy and tasty and strongly believes in the opportunities available with the research and development of recipes needed for ideal snack products. The strong demands for innovation has led the organization to partner with Universities and other small research organizations, thus bringing about an alteration in the traditional R&D organization model of the company and bringing about a change in the role of researchers and technologists (Petroni et al. 147).
Model
The issue faced by the R&D department of Kettle Brand chips is caused by the change in the environment in which the organization operated. That issue can be directly resolved by application of open systems model, in which the inputs are received from different sources in the environment, and the outputs taken are evaluated and sent back to the environment as inputs. It ensures constant communication and healthy interaction between all the individuals working in the R&D department, the success of which largely relies upon the precise flow of information.
Diagnostic Plan
The diagnostic process begins with the selection of about 24 members from different sections of the organization’s R&D operation. The individuals who were part of the traditional structure will comprise majority of that selection, while the individuals from partner groups will constitute for first set of inputs. Together, they create an environment to begin the diagnostic process of open systems theory. The members from partner groups will provide the first set of inputs, which can either be their nutritional findings or a new technology. The remaining members will take this input and provide their understandings as output which will be input back in the environment and evaluated by members of partner groups. Ethics can be enforced by anonymity of participants in order to protect the confidentiality of the sensitive information exchanged in the open systems environment.
Works Cited
"Potato Chips Drive $22 Billion U.S. Salty Snacks Market." IFT.org. Institute of Food Technologists, 8 Mar. 2016. Web. 07 July 2016.
Petroni, Giorgio, Karen Venturini, and Chiara Verbano. "Open Innovation and New Issues in R&D Organization and Personnel Management." The International Journal of Human Resource Management 23.1 (2012): 147-73. Web. 7 July 2016.
