Manufacturing And Distribution

Coca Cola manufacturers all their products in Indonesia. The company has been awarded prizes for attaining standards above similar plants located in other parts of the world. Coca Cola falls as a Continuous and Assembly line company. It produces different product lines, about 400 different brands. I requires mass production due to its high demand all over the world. It sells over 1.4 billion beverages servings each day!! The products begin as raw material and go through many stages.

1. Ingredients Preparations

2. Mixing

3. Washing

4. Filling & Capping

5. Coding

6. Inspection

7. Packaging

8. Loading

Coca cola has adopted to different types of mass customization methods. An example is their new "Coca-Cola Freestyle", which is a soda fountain 2.0. The machines found today in fast food restaurants and movie theaters offer five to eight standard beverages – Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Fanta, etc. The Freestyle fountain offers 100 different drinks, all mixed on the spot.The Freestyle technology can combine small, exact amounts of concentrated ingredients, stored in cartridges, with water and sweetener to mix a beverage on the spot. Farrell pointed out several advantages that the cartridge-based system offers Coca-Cola and its retail partners over conventional fountains, which simply mix pre-made syrup with carbonated water. The syrup is stored in five-gallon bags that are more expensive to ship and bulky to store, which limits the number of options that each fountain can offer. The Freestyle not only offers more flavors, but gives users the option to customize their drink.

Although coca cola cannot adopt to every type of mass customization method, they improved their technology so that they can bring the product to the customer directly in a unique way. Over the years they have been able to adopt more types of methods, as shown by the new "Coca-Cola Freestyle."

Coca-Cola uses continous and assembly line process because it allows the product to be produced in high volumes. The company has made it a point to reduce the cost of production, and started reusing their products. Cola-Cola has a mass market that it attends to, so it is important that they are able to produce the product for low costs. The product is highly automated and operates at capacity. Continuous process reduces inventories and distribution costs, which then allows the for the total cost of manufacturing to be lowered.

History and Facts

Coca Cola got started in 1886 and it became the leading manufacturer, distributer and marketer of non alcoholic beverages. You can find their head quarter in Atlanta Georgia. Employ over 92,000 people worldwide. Worldwide they have about 3,000 brands. All over the world everyone has different preferences and Coca Cola has to adjust its approach so it can target all these difference. It holds international success and holds almost half of the Global Carbonated Market Share (47%). Coca-Cola is a worldwide franchise of sponsorships and products helps to narrate the future for many businesses. Coca-Cola not only manufactures soft drinks but there are hundreds of different goods which Coke also helps to manufacture. Raw materials which are associated with the manufacturing process are nutritive and non-nutritive sweeteners known as high fructose corn syrup which seem to be the additive people become familiar with when craving a Coca-cola product.

Coca Cola also has many bottling partners who work closely with their customers. Some of these partners consist of grocery stores, convenience stores, vending machines, movie theaters, amusement parks, etc.The beverage Coca-Cola is sold in over 200 countries utilizing the ingredients of carbonated water, sugar, caffeine, phosphoric acid, and natural flavorings to give customers an idea of what the drink contains, however the official formula is known as a trade secret and is under contract to not be distributed for any type of reproduction, as Coke is undeniably original. Advertising for Coca Cola is known to have incredible effect on the world with adds anywhere from sporting events to billboards and even can be found on the sides of buildings which is more commonly associated with the 1950’s era of advertising. Coca Cola is particularly known by their bottling and people grow to become comfortable with their type of packaging and the traditional trademarks set by the company. There are numerous amounts of additional products which Coke helps to manufacture including a wide variety of other soft drinks such as Sprite and Mountain Dew. “All production plants meet and frequently exceed international standards and local regulatory requirements and undergo regular audits in the areas of quality control, environmental, health and safety practices. Coca-Cola beverage products begin as raw material and go through many stages as follows: Ingredients Preparations, Mixing, Washing, Filling & Capping, Coding, Inspection, Packaging, and Loading.” This quote applies to the manufacturing process for Coca Cola in terms of the diligence and respect Coke as a distributor deserves.

Inventory Bar Code Software, Inc.

Coco Cola is one of the largest known companies in the world and uses "Bar Code Software, Inc" as their source of inventory. They are able to track each of their products through a tracking system in which lets them know when to reorder whatever product for each vending machine that is located in the United States. The actually system itself is called "Track-it.", and they were able to access all the information on locations of each vending machine through computers at Coco Cola. Track it consists of specialized software that pulls the information from Coke’s mainframe database and transfers it to handheld terminals with built-in laser scanners. Printed bar code labels are generated and placed on every machine, old and new. The bar code indicates the machine’s special asset number, as assigned by Coke. When it is time to perform a physical inventory, Track It pulls information on existing inventory from Coke’s mainframe using “queries” and “ODBC” drivers. This process generates a record on each piece of machinery with all pertinent information.

Next, this information is transferred from the PC in its entirety to each handheld scanning terminal using Track It’s specialized software. Multiple terminals are used simultaneously to scan the bar codes on each machine throughout Coke’s remanufacturing facilities. As each vending machine’s bar code is scanned, the asset number is compared to each number on the list that had been downloaded from Track It. A report listing those assets found and not found is then displayed on the handheld terminal’s display. The new information is then transferred from all of the portable terminals back to Track It, and the database on the PC is automatically updated. Reconciliation inquiries and reports are now available at the click of a mouse.

Continuous Product Flow and Made To Stock

Coca Cola as a bottling company uses the continuous flow method of manufacturing. As we know, continuous flow may be defined as the so called process industries which refer to manufacturing goods such as beer, paper, oil, and electricity, where in this case it would be a soft drink company. Here, the products are made in a continuous fashion and tend to be highly standardized and automated with very high volumes of production. The production flow of Coca Cola involves passing sub-assemblies/parts from one stage of production to another in a regular flow. Each stage adds to the products, this is typical among bottling plants. Coke used this method because the products being distributed by the company are in wide variation and is sold in bulk amounts. Products being distributed range from the bottled goods such as Coke, Diet Coke, an assorted amount of different flavored soft drinks, to bottled water. Given that Coca Cola has such a large range of production, continuous flow is the best way to produce the products.

The type of customer order which Coca Cola uses to process goods is the Made to Stock method. The MTS type of ordering system works very well with Coca Cola as a manufacturer. This process can help to provide faster service to customers from available stock and lower costs considering Coke normally has a distribution process of bulk items. Normally when customers order Coca Cola products, it is in a bulk amount when distributing through a B2B operation. When customers are purchasing individual bottles of Coke, it is after the process of the wholesale item being sold to a business, and afterwards the business will distribute each single item to their customers, making profit off of the product since they bought it in bulk from the Coca Cola company. The MTS method of customer order has a process where a standard product line is specified by the producer, not by the customer and therefore products are carried in inventory to immediately fulfill customer demand. Suppose Coke Cola used a Made to Order customer process, they would never distribute their goods in a fast enough fashion due to the high demand of customers that the company possesses.