The Challenge

What started out in Chilliwack, BC as a family operation has grown into a premium pet food contender, sold in more than 20 countries internationally. Petcurean creates premium quality, nutrient-rich food that’s right for pets, to help our dogs and cats get the most out of their lives with their owners. To maintain their competitive advantage, Petcurean recognized the need to innovate on existing products to meet the needs of their customers and to improve time to market for their new products through effective project control metrics.

To support this initiative, Petcurean engaged Propel solutions to conduct a business process review of their project management processes related to new product launches to streamline communication, improve management systems, and increase customer value through innovative products.

The Objective

  • Process Review: Propel completed an in-depth review of the current processes with all teams involved in the New Product launch processes, including: innovation, marketing, operations, finance and sales. Our consultants worked with the stakeholders to outline how the information flows through all the project phases within the project team and how changes are managed and communicated throughout the project.
  • Design and Implementation of Recommendations: Propel assisted in re-designing the current project management tools to increase engagement of the project teams earlier in the process. The redesign allowed for increased visibility and understanding of how the project teams are connected throughout the process. The new project tools drive accountability throughout the project management process and clarifies roles and responsibilities of each team to support the overarching goals of the company.
  • Development of a Management Toolkit: Propel’s Business Process Improvement consultants work with team leads to facilitate a review of the current Management Toolkit. With the feedback from the team leads, the Propel team was able to help develop a set of key performance indicators and tools that can be used to measure project success moving forward.

THE RESULTS

The Petcurean project team was able to increase project engagement and open communication flow among the team. The four-week engagement provided Petcurean with improvement opportunities that will allow them to continue to grow on the path towards a more responsive project management team.