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Swire Beverages Unlocks the Full Potential of Its Coca-Cola Supply Chain Network in China
Faced with skyrocketing demand, bottler deploys supply chain solutions to reduce inventory and out-of-stocks, improve process compliance across all operations across China
March 12, 2009 — Swire Beverages is the holding company of Swire Coca-Cola HK Limited, the franchise bottler for all brands of The Coca-Cola Company in Hong Kong. The company is the leading total beverage provider, with an 86 percent share of the carbonated soft drinks market. It runs seven bottling facilities, 75 production lines and 200 distribution centers, and it operates in five export markets with more than 280 SKUs. In addition, Swire partners with 30,000 distributors and logistics providers located across China.
Currently selling over 42 million cases of beverage annually to the Hong Kong market's population of 7 million, it's no surprise that Swire had specific supply chain challenges and needed solutions that could be scaled significantly and provide fast return.
Bubbling Under Pressure
The Coca-Cola Company brand's phenomenal growth in China placed increasing demands on Swire's entire supply chain. Previously the company's network of bottling production facilities utilized a manual system that was rapidly reaching breaking point.
In order to handle the accelerated growth of the beverage market in China, Swire needed a solution to manage the forecasted growth of its seven bottling plants in Central, Eastern and Southern China, as well as the increasing complexity of its products and supply chain. Each of these plants operates relatively independently, but each facility does not manufacture all SKUs that they sell. As a result, additional plants were needed to supply products due to facility capacity restraints.
Swire was also increasingly faced with more demanding customer service levels, and the company's Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) Center was tapped to provide planning support for a new supply chain joint venture to service all of China's bottlers, of which Swire is a significant shareholder. The difficulty in accurate forecasting was compounded by the seasonality of the beverage industry, consumer marketing initiatives and the complexity of Swire Beverages' nationwide network.
"Initially the number one challenge was simply how Swire Beverages would cope with the forecasted growth of the business and increasing complexity," said Maggie Huang, Swire Beverages APS Center manager, supply chain. "Factor in Swire's joint venture with Coca-Cola Consolidated, as well as other industry-related opportunities, and we realized the need to implement strategic solutions for Swire to maintain its industry position and to have one synchronized view of demand integrated into all of Swire's manufacturing, bottling, planning and execution activities."
Adding Effervescence to the Supply Chain
To cope with these issues, Swire elected to implement solutions from JDA Software of Scottsdale, Ariz. Factors in the decision to go with JDA included the solutions' scalability and ease of integration, the rapid implementation and time to benefit, as well as the idea of partnering with a company that made the effort to understand Swire's values and cultural challenges, according to JDA.
Currently selling over 42 million cases of beverage annually to the Hong Kong market's population of 7 million, it's no surprise that Swire had specific supply chain challenges and needed solutions that could be scaled significantly and provide fast return.
Bubbling Under Pressure
The Coca-Cola Company brand's phenomenal growth in China placed increasing demands on Swire's entire supply chain. Previously the company's network of bottling production facilities utilized a manual system that was rapidly reaching breaking point.
In order to handle the accelerated growth of the beverage market in China, Swire needed a solution to manage the forecasted growth of its seven bottling plants in Central, Eastern and Southern China, as well as the increasing complexity of its products and supply chain. Each of these plants operates relatively independently, but each facility does not manufacture all SKUs that they sell. As a result, additional plants were needed to supply products due to facility capacity restraints.
Swire was also increasingly faced with more demanding customer service levels, and the company's Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) Center was tapped to provide planning support for a new supply chain joint venture to service all of China's bottlers, of which Swire is a significant shareholder. The difficulty in accurate forecasting was compounded by the seasonality of the beverage industry, consumer marketing initiatives and the complexity of Swire Beverages' nationwide network.
"Initially the number one challenge was simply how Swire Beverages would cope with the forecasted growth of the business and increasing complexity," said Maggie Huang, Swire Beverages APS Center manager, supply chain. "Factor in Swire's joint venture with Coca-Cola Consolidated, as well as other industry-related opportunities, and we realized the need to implement strategic solutions for Swire to maintain its industry position and to have one synchronized view of demand integrated into all of Swire's manufacturing, bottling, planning and execution activities."
Adding Effervescence to the Supply Chain
To cope with these issues, Swire elected to implement solutions from JDA Software of Scottsdale, Ariz. Factors in the decision to go with JDA included the solutions' scalability and ease of integration, the rapid implementation and time to benefit, as well as the idea of partnering with a company that made the effort to understand Swire's values and cultural challenges, according to JDA.
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