‘Corporate memory’ sounds like a complex idea but it’s essentially a logbook on how to fix problems as and when they arise. When you look at it like that, it could be easy to give a shrug of the shoulders and think ‘ah well, we have our ways of tackling these things’. That may be true, but I’m keen to share my 40 years worth of experience on why I value corporate memory.
What is corporate memory?
The classic definition is ‘the accumulated knowledge, experience, and expertise of an organisation, encompassing both documented information and the skills and insights of its employees’.
Essentially, corporate memory means to create specific records of the how and why your product was created, any changes that were made along the way, and anything that was learned to help you arrive at the final product.
With all of the required documentation within the food industry, you would think that everything would be, surely, covered - but all too often, I find that key information is just not retained in working practice. Too many times in my 40 years of working with food businesses of all sizes and developmental stages, issues arise and companies spend time and money trying to find new solutions.
Invoking corporate memory can negate all of that. Because it’s more than the records found in specifications, HACCP, TACCP or VACCP. It is the reasoning behind the practice of why something is done or not done in a specific way. For example, why certain ingredients were incorporated.
Why is it important?
It isn’t important at all, until it is! …And when is that?
It’s when things go wrong, when you get a spike in customer complaints, or someone rechecks the costings and finds that a new product is selling well but not making the profit anticipated.
That is when I get a call to help and am told: ‘Nothing has been changed but…we are failing shelf life/we have a random pattern of rejects/customer complaints, and we can’t identify the cause.’ This is exactly when the company needs to invoke corporate memory, to find out what has happened or, indeed, stopped happening.
Another example is when the product is successful, and you want to scale to a larger production run/larger machinery, or move production to a different production site or different third party producer.
You can make various tweaks by invoking corporate memory; or, if this has been lost, rebuild it as part of these steps. Question what each ingredient is doing to earn its place and you may find that some were only necessary for an older production method, yet continued to work when switched to a new machine so weren’t removed. Now by doing so, you could improve nutrition and shelf life.
How to preserve it
There are several steps I recommend for recording information at different stages of development, launch and postlaunch:
1. Create an RACCP
A document produced on the same principles as other critical control points, but this is for your Recipe Analysis CCPs. Which stages are crucial in the recipe’s uniqueness and need to be preserved? These will be what makes this recipe repeatable, and without ‘step X’ the product would change in one or multiple points of the organoleptic properties.
2. Note the effects of the machinery on the recipe
For example, take the route of developing a product with one set of ingredients but three different production methods depending on the order sizes and therefore the kit used. If I could tell the batch size by tasting it, then the customer would too. They would think we had changed the recipe or that we had quality control (QC) issues and complain, or worse, stop buying our inconsistent product.
3. Understand how different production crews effect the product
If the line has points where variation can be introduced, you need to mitigate for this. For example, I had one customer who had a line that was not making the profit predicted. It was suspected that this was from the rejects out of the prover. It was not, it was at the other end of the line entirely. When switching one ingredient for another the charge hand was instructed that the temperature of the fat introduced to the mixer had to be between X and Y and it usually was, so they stopped checking as it was not required to be recorded anywhere. Then, as staff changed, they did not know it was a Recipe Analysis CCP and it was not on HACCP because it not a food safety but a product quality issue. So what went wrong? When the fat was too cold it did not blend in; when it did not blend it stuck to the belt; when it stuck to the belt they put on extra flour (cost). Extra flour caused dust issues (cost); uneven mix led to uneven proving one mile down the belt and rejects (more costs). When I stepped in, the company was about to buy a new prover (big CapEx cost). After a bit of a corporate memory exploration, I just re-introduced temperature checking to every team and this time with a record sheet that was verified (no cost/cost saving/consistent quality).
What do you do if you suspect you have lost corporate memory?
Talk to your team
This is an exercise in going back to basics. Ask every section leader ‘Do you remember why we do X?‘, ‘Do you always have to do it? and ‘How long has it been since that has changed?’
Then compare the production sheet in the official specification with what actually happens in the production. Do not look too surprised at the vast differences. This will help you trace reasons for customer complaints or product improvements or costing issues.
Talk to the line crew before you change things and ask the same questions as above, especially to anyone who has worked there any length of time. All too often, long standing team members are not asked for their opinions and yet they sit there with a large store of highly valuable answers.
Question and record
Question and record the buying specifications - are they specific enough? Here’s a simple example of why this is crucial: I worked at a company that suddenly had an ingredient texture issue in its ham and pineapple pizza product and had to recall (only from depot, but still a huge financial cost and threat to reputation). What was the cause? A new financial director asked the buying team to reduce their spend; they accepted an offer on pineapple with a close BBE (best before end - whilst you use after this date, it may not be as stable) but it was a high volume ingredient, so this would not be an issue. The cost saving pineapple was in juice. The pH was too low and the bromelain too high. The ham was not the highest quality and all but dissolved and the flavour was changed.
A corporate memory check would have highlighted why they were using pineapple in syrup. The remedy: Buying specs were tightened and the buying team learnt to check with NPD before accepting ‘really good’ offers.
‘Not a dusty manual’
In conclusion, far from being a dusty old manual that doesn’t matter much, corporate memory is integral to the ongoing success and growth of a product. It is far less expensive to maintain it, rather than regain it when something goes wrong, or make a uninformed string of changes which add to the cost of fixing a problem.
Having a positive corporate memory practice is also a great step for company culture, helping nurture the knowledge and skills of valued team members as well as aiding constructive communication when problem solving. So, why wouldn’t you want to record and remember?
