1. Case Study Naturals Naturals (formerly, Natural Ice Creams) was launched in 1984 by Raghunandan Kamath. The companys growth story is much similar to the proverbial David in the `10,000 Crores ($148 million) Indian ice-cream business with Goliaths such as Amul, Mother Dairy, Hindustan Unilever, Baskin and Robbins, Haagen-Dazs, Vadilal Icecream, etc. While the success of David in the biblical story is attributed to the backing of God, for Naturals, the success can be attributed to the grit, determination, foresight, innovativeness and quality consciousness of its founder, Raghunandan Kamath, which were the primary drivers of success. Kamath attributes his success to the divine will and engages in philanthropic services too. The Naturals chain of ice-cream parlours has 126 stores across India with 11 stores managed directly and the rest by franchisees. Currently, the stores are located in key cities of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Telangana, Kerala, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi NCR regions. In the fiscal year 2017 18, with a total retail area of over 80,000 sq. feet, the chains annual turnover crossed `200 Crores ($2.96 million). Presently, Naturals produces over 20 tonnes of ice creams every day from its range of 100 flavours using natural pulp from about 60 varieties of fruits, including dry fruits. Recognitions and awards have followed Raghunandan Kamath over the years and although he is happy with his achievements, he is more thrilled to teach the art of entrepreneurship to budding minds. He advises: Be an entrepreneur to bridge the gap between poverty and riches. Prominent among his awards is the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award in 2016, Gold Medal for the most innovative ice cream in the Great Indian Ice Cream Contest, Corporation Banks National SMEs Excellence award in Food and Agro Industry in 2006, a place in the Limca Book of Records for the largest ice cream slab weighing 3,000 kg (3.3 US tonnes), etc. Besides featuring on almost all the prominent Indian business magazines and newspapers, Naturals has been the subject of case studies in management schools locally and globally. The below narrative is in the context of successful project management in every business aspect such as product innovation, distribution innovation, process innovation, operations innovation, sourcing innovation and of entrepreneurship in every aspect in the business of manufacturing traditional ice creams. Quality and consistency of the products offered are other hallmarks of Naturals. The general process of manufacturing industrial ice cream is given in Exhibit II. At every stage of the ice cream making process, innovation, engineering and enterprise are manifest in Naturals. Let us understand the process in a stage-wise manner. 26 | Chapter 1 1. Ingredients: The basic raw material used in the manufacture of ice creams, commercially, is a mixture of milk and/or cream, sugar, eggs and fl avour extracts such as vanilla, emulsifi ers and stabilizers. Naturals does not use eggs, fl avours, emulsifi ers or stabilizers; as a result, the shelf life is extremely lessat best, 15 days. The brand name Naturals ensures that only naturally available products, predominantly organic, are used in the manufacture of these ice creams. The products are thus ice-creams and not frozen desserts. Frozen desserts are made with vegetable oils, whereas ice creams are made with only milk and dairy fat. Most offerings in the ice cream category are factually frozen desserts, whereas Naturals is among the very few ice creams that are factually ice creams. The fresh fruits added in it give the right fl avour and texture to the products; they are obtained from source and are invariably, of the best quality. The milk is procured from just one source for consistency. The Toyota production systems adopt the process of Keiretsu or single supplier for outsourced products and Naturals follows the same practicesa single supplier of milk for the past 35 years. At every stage of the procurement process, commitment to quality and a wonderful foresight of the effects of minor seasonal variations in the fi nal product helped Kamath perfect the art of making ice creams. Sitaphal or custard apple ice creams are the most sought-after fl avour. The fruit has a problem of de-seeding while extracting the pulp. It was not possible to manually deseed more than two kilos of fruits by a person on a day, but the demand was over 500 kgs of custard apple. Kamaths used his creativity and developed an indigenous equipment which could separate the seed from the fl esh effectively and meet the daily requirements. 2. Blending: The traditional native cooking on wooden fi re uses a long hollow pipe to blow air in the vessel by heating milk to prevent milk from overfl owing from the pot and yet continue to simmer. This common but unique technique enhances the taste of the end product, making milk creamier and tastier. Technically called falling fi lm evaporation, the milk temperature is brought to 30C before cooling it to four degrees and then heating it to 90C within four minutes. Cooled again to 4C, it turns into condensed milk, the way it is needed for ice cream production. Similar to traditional mass cooking, typically in temple food preparation, various vegetables and pulses are added, depending upon the exact time required to cook them right. Naturals has mastered the process of layered blending of fresh fruits to ensure that the best fl avours get captured and the fi nished product retains the consistency of fl avours and aroma uniformly from the fi rst scoop to the last scoop. As Naturals uses a unique process, the standard equipment for commercial ice creams was not of much help. Kamath used his own proprietary technical skills and developed specialized equipment for each stage of their unique manufacturing process. 3. Homogenization: Homogenization is a process that gives milk its rich, white colour and smooth texture. Milk, which has not been homogenized, contains a layer of cream that rises to the top of the cup, carrying the Generic commercial ice cream manufacturing process Introduction to Project Management | 27 milk. However, one of the disadvantages of homogenization is that milk becomes sensitive to light, especially sunlight and fluorescent light, resulting in sunlight flavour. As the delicate flavours of many Naturals ice creams is based on fruits such as tender coconut, any sunlight flavour effect can mar the natural flavours. Hence, in the process of manufacturing ice creams, Naturals does not use the process of homogenization. 4. Cooling and Ageing: The mix is then aged for at least four hours which allows time for the fat to cool down and crystallize. Ageing provides the desired whipping qualities for the mix and body and texture of the ice cream. Most commercial ice creams use air to make ice creams voluminous. The grading of ice creams is typically super premium (least air called overrun) to standard (most air or overrun). Naturals ice creams do not add air into the ice creams; whatever air is present in the product is the result of the normal manufacturing process. Therefore, when a customer buys 530 ml of Naturals ice cream, he actually gets more than 500 gms of ice cream, whereas in case of most other competing ice creams, 500 ml could fetch more than 250 gms of ice creams plus air. 5. Processing and hardening: Processing or freezing/whipping of ice creams is the process where about 50 per cent of the water is frozen and a considerable amount of air is blown, giving the product its characteristic lightness. At this stage, the product is a semi-frozen slurry where the particulate matter such as fruits, nuts, candies or cookies is added. In case of Naturals, the particulate matter or fruits are added at a much earlier stage, giving it a characteristic aroma, which otherwise is lost, should these particulate matter be added at this stage. Second, as mentioned earlier, no air is blown in the ice creams, giving a thickness which no other competing brand can offer. The next stage is to freeze the remaining water and the commercial process is blast freezing at 30C up to 40C. Ice creams should be maintained at 25 for stability. In case of Naturals ice creams, the temperature of manufacture is maintained at 22C. 6. Packaging: After the hardening stage, commercial ice creams get transformed into a variety of novelty or impulse products through various filing and forming machines. Naturals, however, prefers to deliver over 40,000 scoops of ice creams manually on a daily basis rather than packaging the scoops in 50 ml or 100 ml containers. This is done to preserve the texture, flavour and composition of ice creams. Furthermore, easy-to-dispose and light weight packaging materials are used in distribution which help reduce the requirement of reverse logistics. 7. Storage: The ice creams which are kept at 22C are packed into boxes along with a plenty of dry ice to keep it from melting. 8. Delivery and Distribution: Naturals operates from only one manufacturing plant located in the northern suburbs of Mumbai and supplies to all the outlets from this plant. Transport of ice creams and onwards by road have been facilitated by the Railways. As the taste and freshness of ice creams depend on a specified number of hours before it loses its taste, Naturals trucks can cover only a finite distance. Naturals is in the process of setting up manufacturing units called mega-shops in other locations such as Chandigarh which will provide frozen non-perishable fruit pulp and processed milk to be blended into ice creams. Once successful, the mega-shops would be the launch pad for its global ventures. Some unique features of Naturals ice creams are as follows: 1. Taste of traditional home-made and hand-made ice creams. 2. Creamier and richer, distinctly Indian. 3. 100 per cent vegetarian ice creams, which have an acceptance across communities. 4. Predominantly fruity flavours, acceptable to all customers. 5. Ice creams which are freshly made without any preservatives and are appealing to all customers, especially health conscious customers. 6. Constant innovations with fruit combinations. 7. Only milk and cream used in the manufacture of Naturals ice creams. 28 | Chapter 1 Summary Projects are unique but Project Management is repetitive. Every exponent of project management should realize this important aspect. Although we see projects of different types in software development or in construction, the factors that drive success in each project remain the same. Scope definition, cost estimation and duration decisions are vital for project completion. Essential working features in a project would be Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) which makes it easy to monitor and track the progress of work. Every project should be characterized by a project life cycle with the effort required at the various phases of the project life cycle when traced should resemble a S shaped curve. These S curves can be further classified as cost v/s time S curve, Target S curve, Value and Percentages S curve and Actual S curve. The project manager plays a very key role in the success of the project, and hence, the traits that would lead to timely execution of the project become very important. K EYWO R D S Project scope management Project time management Project cost management Work breakdown structure S curve Project organization Project life cycle Detailed project report (dpr) Project management professional (pmp) Project management institute (pmi) Epc company 8. Zero advertising expenses and reliance on word-of-mouth publicity. 9. Value for money pricing strategies. 10. More ice cream per scoop due to least overrun (air). 11. High quality standards from receiving fruits and other ingredients to the finished products. Project management and entrepreneurship are used synonymously, with most successful entrepreneurs being excellent project managers. Innovation and agile project management are the other techniques successfully applied at Naturals in every phase of their growth.