Subsidiary of Pepsico

Sales revenue $4.5 billion

1st quarter 1997: $2.6 billion (63% increase)

Human
Material
Financial
Informational

Human

Frito Lay employs 30,000 people in total. All 12,000 salespeople carry handheld computers linked into a central mainframe. These handhelds automatically process sales orders and invoicing. Frito Lay estimates this saves up to 50,000 worker hours a week.

Material

Frito Lay uses 2.3 billion pounds of potatoes and 775 million pounds of corn to produce 7 billion bags of snacks per year across more than 100 product lines.

Financial

Strict inventory and cost controls mean that Frito Lay's operating margins are among the highest in the snack food industry. It produces 40% of the profits of its parent company, Pepsico.

Informational

Frito Lay's network processes data from 41 production plants, 1,900 warehouses, 400,000 retail stores and 750,000 weekly sales calls. Managers can use this information to gauge demand for any product instantly, even on a local or store-specific basis. This helps marketing, shipping, and inventory planning.

You can find out more about Frito Lay and its operations at the company's Web site:.

http://www.fritolay.com/fritoco.html