For Coke, Things Go Better with Optimized Logistics

Soft drink giant Coca-Cola's Greek operations, Coca-Cola Hellenic, has optimized its logistics processes, including route optimization, route planning and loadbuilding. Based in Athens and with subsidiaries in 28 European countries, the beverage maker's logistics optimization project has been supported by software solutions from ORTEC.

Coca-Cola Hellenic (CCH), one of the largest bottlers of non-alcoholic beverages in Europe, has already implemented at several locations the ORTEC beverage solutions for route planning and dispatching, pallet and loadbuilding as well as for warehouse control and picking.

The Europe-wide project, estimated to run until 2012, began in 2006 with the joint development of an ORTEC LEO template version. The first operative startup followed in 2007 with the introduction of the non-embedded ORTEC beverage solution in Greece, and soon mirrored by Italy and Switzerland. In 2008, Romania followed, while Croatia is already in the preparation stages for the go-live. Furthermore, the SAP-embedded ORTEC beverage solution was installed in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 2008.

Since the implementation of the solutions, CCH has enjoyed more efficient cost structures, time and route optimized processes, as well as improved planning quality. A further benefit for CCH has come from more secure decision making processes resulting from the ORTEC SAP embedded implementation, which are based on data directly from SAP that is consistent and current in all planning phases. These solutions have considerably shortened the time CCH's customers need for planning.

Strong growth, especially in Eastern Europe, prompted CCH to establish new processes and data standards throughout the entire group. Varying process structures and, as is the case with CCH, distinctly diverse markets come with different prerequisites, place specific demands on the software and call for individual solutions. Using order-, customer- and vehicle specific restrictions of the respective orders, the ORTEC solution determines the ideal routes. The calculation is based mainly on order and vehicle data, information pertaining to loading stations, vehicle costs and transport tariffs, as well as working, driving and resting times of the drivers. The result is a route plan in tabular or cartographic form, tailored to the CCH fleet, which also includes information about route mileage, transport and planning costs, as well as possible delivery times. In the course of the route planning, different delivery variations are considered, such as single or multi day planning, return transports, third party businesses or two-step cross-docking transports.

Source: http://logisticstoday.com/