To be able to offer that localized customer service worldwide, Coca-Cola six years ago established the world’s largest lean-Six Sigma supply chain operation to leverage best practices, processes and operational excellence programs. “It’s all about being local, being responsive, being market-driven and also being able to leverage the brand, the innovation, the technology and what we’ve learned of best practices in our global system,” Buffington explains.
The key elements for Coca-Cola’s operational excellence programs are “culture and capability,” according to Buffington. “It’s very important that all of our 700,000 employees – whether they’re administrative, financial, merchandising or delivery – have a culture of continuous improvement, a culture of zero defects and perfect quality.”
Working collaboratively with suppliers ensures that the best practices established by Coca-Cola are applied across the board.
“The first point of integration in the supply chain is between the Coca-Cola company and our bottlers, some of which we own and operate, but the majority of which are independent companies,” Buffington notes. “We own the brands, do the marketing and product innovations. We supply the concentrates and are involved in organizing procurement on a global basis. We provide franchise leadership, technology, and capability and strategy development.”
Coca-Cola works closely with its bottlers around the world on procurement and commercializing new products and new packaging technologies. “We are building a common lean-Six Sigma program around the world,” Buffington explains. “We share development and deployment of training programs for leadership, middle management and front-line supervisors, so the first level of integration is that between Coca-Cola and our bottlers.”
Coca-Cola’s supply chain is focused on delivering on its brands’ promises for great products. “We sell refreshments and a few moments of joy to people all over the world, so we want to keep it as affordable as we can,” he notes. “Productivity and eliminating waste and inefficiencies is very important from the supply chain standpoint to maintain that availability.”