68% of organizations are now accelerating their supply chain modernization efforts, according to a recent study by Harvard Business Review. One such company is The Central American Bottling Corporation (CBC).
CBC was the first bottler of PepsiCo products outside the US. They have since diversified and expanded their portfolio to boast multiple food and drink companies, giving them the largest beverage portfolio in Latin America. They are continuing to acquire multiple new businesses, seeing accelerated business growth, which is adding complexity to their tech stack.
To meet demands for quality master data and standardize operations across the organization, they created a shared services function and Center of Excellence (COE). When they acquire a new business, they provide a software tool kit to ensure best practice, which includes Bizagi to guarantee process consistency and act as a secure integration layer to protect master data stored in SAP while still making it visible across the organization.
CBC have successfully automated and orchestrated over 17 processes using Bizagi in just two and half years, and are continuing to optimize processes across the organization. They have over a million customers across North and South America, with a vast portfolio of products that need to be distributed across a complex network of suppliers; over 2,200 routes to market.
While this diverse portfolio and broad customer base are the foundation for an excellent business, it has created a fragmented IT infrastructure of multiple disconnected systems, including multiple SAP instances. As the organization continues to grow and acquire new businesses, they are handling higher volumes of master data and dealing with increased complexity, when what they need is increased efficiency.
“Handling and tuning our database was a pain and we had no development capacity for processes. Our tool was not working well, so we looked for a modern solution with a focus to create and automate processes when we selected Bizagi,” said Rafael Bardales, CBC’s CIO.
Bizagi’s low-code platform has been deployed across the organization through their COE. Its primary use is process standardization and as an end-to-end orchestrator. This ensures compliance and best practice as well as delivering efficiency to processes through automation, such as order management and dispatching. That key process has seen particular success thanks to end-to-end automation.
The order process starts with an inventory check. Over 2,200 vendors will submit their presales information and the system checks which locations can fulfil each order. The warehouses receive the inventory lists and have a limited window of time to load the trucks ready for the next day’s delivery.
The lack of integration between these systems made it hard to gain visibility over which stock was stored where. Bizagi now orchestrates vendor information from SAP, so all information is visible through a single point of truth, saving time and ensuring no errors are made.
Next, it’s time to plan what needs to be loaded onto the trucks and which routes the deliveries should take to be the most cost and time efficient, as well as environmentally friendly. The system initiates a third-party route and load planning tool which returns information to Bizagi.
“It is very important for us to comply with the SLAs of transportation orders. For large warehouses we have an SLA of 35 minutes to send the papers so they can load the trucks,” explained Bardales. Trucks must be loaded and with routes ready by 4am so that they can be out on the road before the city-wide HGV restrictions which curb pollution and traffic.
Bizagi creates a sheet that is sent to the driver detailing the route and the best way to load the truck. Loading is just as important as the delivery as goods need to be loaded in the order that they will be delivered to ensure time efficiency, as well as making sure nothing fragile is loaded at the bottom of truck.
The delivery is made to the customer the next morning. Since deploying Bizagi, CBC has met 100% of its delivery SLAs thanks to clarity and orchestration of data which has driven the efficiency of the process. Additionally, tasks can be carried out on mobile phones. So rather than employees being tethered to desktop computers to initiate inventory checks or check delivery statuses, they can do it all on the go.
“There are numerous more technical achievements, but if you ask everyone across the business what the biggest benefit has been, it’s that ability to interact with the process from their mobile phone,” commented Bardales.
One area where mobile usage has been particularly beneficial is the onboarding of new customers. The majority of CBC’s customers are independent Mom & Pop stores. They needed a way to capture new customers’ details in the field to onboard new customers and provide them with goods as quickly as possible. This is particularly important as independent retailers may not have the capacity to store a large inventory, so rely on quick deliveries.
CBC employees can now upload new customer data directly to Bizagi via their mobile devices. A new customer record is created in just four hours using the mobile sales solution. So, when the vendor is ready to put their order into the system, Bizagi has already created their account. The products can then be delivered the next day. Within 24 hours a brand new customer can have a CBC order delivered right to their store.
In addition to this comprehensive distribution process, CBC manages product, pricing and promotions information through Bizagi. If you would like to learn more about this and other processes CBC has automated, read their full customer story.
