Product Lifecycles Mcdonald\'s Corporation Overview of Product

Product Lifecycles

McDonald's Corporation Overview

of Product Design, Development and Product Lifecycles

McDonald's Corporation relies on the intersection of continual product design innovations, new product development, and an extensive supply chain and strategic sourcing system to continually fuel the development of new menu items globally. Their approach to product design, product lifecycle management, and the different issues pertaining to product development they manage are explained in this analysis.

Product design is applied to the decision-making process within McDonald's using an accelerated New Product Development and Introduction (NPDI) process that allows for the company to continually keep their new product pipeline moving forward. This NPDI process is tightly integrated to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems of record and the continual in-bound information from supply chain management (SCM), pricing and procurement systems so a 360-degree view of the new product design process is achieved (Martin, 2002). In this way the product design can be more defined by the trade-offs and requirements of one product initiative relative to another, talking into account the cost constraints and profitability requirements by each product line. This approach is also accentuated by an extensive series of analytics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that McDonald's relies on for ensuring each product design initiative stays in step with internal timelines and also continues to meet profitability objectives (Petrak, 2005). Due to all of these factors being considered, when a product design reaches market test phase, McDonald's has a very high level of certainty regarding its success and often will test market across several geographies at once, often tailoring or localizing a meal or product to unique tastes (Petrak, 2005). All of these are strategies McDonald's relies on to mitigate risk and also increase the overall level of cross-functional training and development company-wide.

Once a new product design is transformed into a launching product, the most significant phases of the product lifecycles are initiative. These include the formalized new product introduction plan being written, the sequencing of all marketing, selling, public relations, sales training and customer service training on the new product as well. Most importantly, McDonald's relies on a very well-defined series of processes with their suppliers that include an extensive Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) and Collaborative, Planning, Forecasting & Replenishment (CPFR) workflow, both meant to evenly distribute risk throughout the entire supply chain (Martin, 2002). The product life cycle also requires intensive levels of cross-channel demand forecasting and the ability to gain support from franchisees for new meal and snack items before they are introduced (Hickey, 2004).