New logistics practices drive improved Coca-Cola distribution stats in France
The producer and distributor of Coca-Cola branded products and other soft drinks including Capri-Sun and Ocean Spray gave an overview of the changes and their impact on carbon footprint.
One of the major new initiatives has been achieved in partnership with major supermarket clients Casino, Carrefour and Monoprix. This is the introduction of ‘backhauling’ – a practice whereby lorries, having made deliveries to shops, are allowed to reload at a nearby CCE site instead of returning empty to the client warehouse.
In 2010 the company said backhauling helped it reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 210 tonnes over 780 deliveries.
Over the past year, CCE has also succeeded in reducing the average number of kilometres travelled per delivery by 4km to 261km. The reduction represents a carbon dioxide savings of some 427 tonnes.
Faster delivery times
This has been achieved thanks to a number of new measures and practices that have also enabled the company to guarantee three day delivery from the beginning of 2011, instead of the old four day figure. In addition, they contributed to a 1.7 point improvement in the percentage of deliveries that arrive on the due date, with the right quantity of products and without quality problems, to 98.4 per cent.
The actions include:
- Manufacturing products more frequently - for example once a week instead of fortnightly.
- Modifying production lines so products can be manufactured in different factories, closer to customers.
- Putting in place fixed daily journeys between main sites.
- Weekly meetings between European teams and local ones to anticipate production and journey needs in the medium term.
- Implementation of common journey indicators shared by all actors in the supply chain.
