Hershey Co. is on the path to digital transformation, supported by a stronger digital foundation. Advanced AI and machine learning ability.
Will Bonifant, vice president of manufacturing, engineering and supply chain strategy, shared more details in a recent article. blog post About this journey that started in 2024 and the progress so far.
Related article: Hershey’s first CTO details IT transformation roadmap and priorities
Mr. Bonifant said that much of the business process improvement is in the manufacturing department.
“We have spent years putting the right systems in place, hiring and/or training the right people, building a robust data architecture, and developing integrated software systems that allow all these areas to work together,” he added.
The company calls this standardization of processes in manufacturing “digital lean.” This has enabled the company to invest in a digital backbone to establish a foundation of data and software from which it can enhance system resiliency through a new asset intelligence platform, added cybersecurity protocols, and a “unified namespace” data architecture.
“First of all, we established a roadmap, or what I like to call a maturity ladder. And before we could digitize anything, we had to re-architect and standardize all our processes to make sure there was actually no waste,” he said. “That required meetings with our leadership team to revisit and redesign processes as necessary to ensure they were being executed correctly. We then trained our employees and, importantly, ensured the entire approach was sustainable.”
Hershey has implemented “Digital Lean” across candy, mints and gum in the U.S. and international sites.
