How a beverage company added refreshment to its supply chain

After two large mergers within about a decade, a global beverage company became a powerhouse with nearly 100 brands and dozens of manufacturing facilities. But operations were inefficient and burdensome: two separate SAP systems, three warehouse systems and inconsistent manufacturing practices. These operational complexities drove the beverage company’s costs much higher than those of its competitors. 

The solution wasn’t a matter of installing one new system or updating one plant or warehouse. To achieve optimal business value, it was critical the beverage powerhouse focused more broadly across its supply chain: achieving cohesive integration between manufacturing and warehousing. Additionally, as the consumer goods industry has been undergoing a supply chain revolution for some time, it was important that they managed risk through supply stability. So in 2016, executives embarked on an ambitious plan of standardization and modernization

This effort to unify processes and streamline disparate back-end systems aimed to save the company time and money, improve its throughput, and reduce expired product — a reimagination of business-as-usual from factory floors all the way through to warehousing. 

To guide its long-term transformation, the company called in Ernst & Young LLP (EY) professionals, backed by powerful alliances with SAP and Procter & Gamble, to address three items: warehousing optimization, manufacturing operations and automated storage/retrieval enhancements.

The first course of action was for EY professionals to perform an operational assessment and design a plan with SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) on the warehouse side. As an SAP Global Strategic Services Partner, EY was well-positioned to handle this work, and the blueprint developed was then implemented across the company’s beverage manufacturing network in the US. However, a software implementation was just the foundation. EY also took steps to merge legacy operations and add automation to product storage and retrieval. Even the way in which trucks arrive at the plant to be loaded was rethought and optimized.

While the team was working to streamline warehouse operations, a similar transformation was occurring further upstream in the supply chain. Using a powerful combination of our sector-specific skills and Procter & Gamble’s Integrated Work System (IWS) — provided through a purpose-built digital transformation platform from EY — we were able to help to address inefficiencies within manufacturing. This proprietary way of improving manufacturing reliability, reducing costs and elevating productivity was founded on two primary principles: the drive to zero losses and 100% employee ownership. It would bring rigor and integration across all global plants.