It all starts with the Stage-Gate Process!

What is the Stage-Gate Process you may ask, well it’s a rather simple concept for systematically reducing projects into a smaller manageable phases that can used as progression checks. What I mean by this is that a project must meet the standards outlined in a given phase before moving onto the next phase. Using this technique provides managers with the ability to make sure they explored every opportunity possible before moving on and ensuring they haven’t missed out on a better option. The Stage-Gate Process can be visualized through a funnel that reduces the possible opportunities as it travels down the funnel until only a few ideas/concepts are left at the end that are the most probable to succeed.

The benefits to this process is it allows the user to view all the possible inputs and narrow down which will and will not work before moving onto a more important stage. This reduces cost and time while producing a superior product.

How Does one Find the ideas/concept for this process?

It’s Simple! Through the combination of consumers, markets, and industry experts. First you must figure out what the need of consumers are, once you’ve done that you need to figure out if they are willing to buy a product to fulfill that need. Finally, it’s a matter of taking that data and supplying it to a industry expert to interrupt it and conceive ideas of how to solve that issue. Most of this data is typically collected through database companies that track trend information. All ideas should be sourced directly from and for the issue that consumers have. If you’re not solving a customer issue then the product has no value.

Gold Standard Critical Attributes & Ideal Attributes

All companies want their gold standards to be flawless and durable, but that’s not a realistic view. There will always be weak points in a product and it’s important to know where they are and which ones can be overlooked. This comes down to identifying which attributes are critical; also know as essential to functionality and structural design, and which attributes are ideal; also known as nice to have but don’t affect overall functionality or structural design enough to be negative. Having this knowledge allows producers to cut corners in areas to save money while still maintaining the quality of the product. Also, it allows producers to know the areas that could potentially be fatal to the products. That meaning, attributes that will result in consumers not buying the product. Furthermore, in gold standards it enables producers make sure that there is consistency with the quality of what is being produced and know where/why a product might not be working the way it should.

What goes into creating and COMMERCIALIZING a Gold Standard?

At it’s very heart is the team behind the creation of the gold standard. This means having a diverse background working on a project to allow multiple viewpoints weigh in. Enabling a product to be analyze and assessed in more ways than one, just like it would be when shipped to consumers who all have vastly different backgrounds. Increasing cross-functionality in the production team allows a product to not be fully developed through a single viewpoint, a view that may miss a better option that ultimately wasn’t seen during the Stage-Gate Process due to everyone thinking the same. This increases productivity and allows for a wider array of ideas to be pitches and problems to be solved. In addition, having people with multiply backgrounds allows for people to specialize in certain aspect of a development process. Some may be more research based, others may be development based, and others might have the insight in marketing or even scale-up procedures. One person can’t hold all the solutions to all these tasks and still produce the best product possible. It’s as simple as dividing and concurring to solve a problem, the oldest technique that man-kind knows to increase efficiency.

Why Develop a gold standard?

The sole reason for developing a goal standard is to promote consistency. This means reducing product drift which results from product inconsistencies during production. Gold Standards outline how/what/where/why everything in a product is the way it is. Acting as a template for future products to be compared to to ensure consistency.

The Take Home!

At the end of the day, if you want consistency you need a gold standard in cooking to avoid errors and to be able to know when there is errors. This all starts with the Stage-Gate Process where multiple culinary concepts are presented and the most viable ones for the target market are selected. Then it moves onto developing those concepts further for desired purposes such as; frozen foods, shelf-stable products, low-carb foods, personalized products, mass produced items, etc. Once parameters such as these and more have been tested and trialed through multiple gates, only then can it be consumer tested and then finally launched. It’s a rather long process but a efficient one to say the least.

Commercializing the Culinary Gold Standard

Week 5