At the age of 19, Hershey decided to go into the candy business for himself. His venture in Philadelphia failed, as did efforts with his father. Back in Lancaster, Hershey began manufacturing caramels. The business quickly expanded and in 1900 he sold his company for $1 million. He used the money for a construction of a chocolate processing plant in Derry Township, about 15 miles east of Harrisburg.
Within 10 years, the company was making more money than they could …show more content…
Hershey's employees play a critical role in quality enhancement, cost control, customer service and overall productivity improvement.
Another aspect of the evolving Hershey Foods organization is the ongoing implementation of a new enterprise-wide initiative (E21) to significantly enhance the company's information systems and business processes. Hershey believes they can gain a competitive advantage in this area and, to that end, the company is investing approximately $80 million in a new enterprise-wide information system utilizing SAP R/3 software. The process will become fully operation during 1999.
One of the element our Hershey's internal drive for continuous improvement is the adoption of Economic Value Added (EVA) concepts to help measure their performance. During 1997, Hershey's employees learned these concepts and processes were implemented in order to capture the necessary information needed to utilize EVA. Beginning in 1998, EVA was a formal part of the company's compensation program for management, along with two other key measurements earning per share and free cash