Management_Ocmmnication_Odwalla_Case

Business Communication 01/14/2009 Odwalla Case Does a company such as Odwalla have a responsibility to change its production processes' The manager in charge of production of Odwalla’s “All Natural Juice” has the responsibility to maintain an error free productions process. Therefore, the question “Should the company have a responsibility to change its production process'” should have been answered before the E. coli outbreak. Continuous evaluation of performance is necessary for a company that is highly successful in its unique production process. The common problem that fast growing companies such as Odwalla face is that of continuity. For example, McDonalds is successful today because they have a set standard for all their franchises. Odwalla was becoming popular because of the quality of their juice and as a result must have failed to make sure nothing goes wrong in the production line. Research and development is critical for a fast growing company that built its reputation by making quality natural juice with a homemade touch, there is bound to be mistakes along the line. Despite the fact that research and development has to do with coming up with new production lines, I believe it should also be used to perform quality control. Odwalla juices were well received by consumers due to its uniqueness therefore they were their own competition. They should have considered the risk of not pasteurizing their juice. With the use of research and development as quality control, they should have been able to gather information on the risks they face as an all natural juice producing company. The risks should have then been monitored by the appropriate managers in charge of the production. Quality control on each step of production would have probably detected the possibility of E. coli existence in the juice. In order to implement this quality control step, the manager would have assumed the decisional role.