Innovative technology is used throughout Arca Continental Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages to help its employees serve 31 million people across Texas and parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico. “We are a people-driven digital bottler,” says AC-CCSWB Chief Information Officer Simon Parkinson. “We’re not using technology for the sake of it, but to improve the work of our associates. If we digitally support each and every one of our associates in their work, that will benefit our customers. If we win together, we all win.”
Based in Dallas and owned by Arca Continental in Monterrey, Mexico, CCSWB is continually investing in the latest digital capabilities, including artificial intelligence, to aid associates and satisfy customers while minimizing environmental impact. At each stage of the process of blending, bottling and distributing beverages, CCSWB uses digital solutions to support its associates and foster operational excellence.
“Our goal is to provide our associates with differentiated technology solutions that will enable them to perform to the highest standards in their roles, in the marketplace and with our customers,” Parkinson says. “Our goal is to simplify complex processes to drive service and value to external marketplace customers and internal company customers — the associates. They are as important to us as our external customers.”
One of the company’s biggest projects has been to recently upgrade its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to a faster in-memory solution that will provide better overall performance, including improved analytics and reporting, and advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, he notes. The ERP system integrates numerous other software solutions that manage daily business activities, providing a wide variety of updated data from a single source.
CCSWB is also leveraging machine learning to optimize promotional calendars at large grocers and to offer recommendations to increase sales. Additionally, the company initiated a project to create a digital twin of its supply network that was implemented recently. This digital twin uses machine learning to optimize the movement of finished product between CCSWB’s network of five production centers and 37 distribution centers.
“It helps our supply planners every day to look at product movements and make the best decision possible about moving product from point A to point B,” Parkinson says. “It enables us to have the right product in the right place at the right time.”
Additionally, CCSWB wields technology to minimize energy and water usage and maximize the recycling of plastic bottles. Within the past year, for instance, CCSWB has been rolling out digital metering of water and energy at its manufacturing locations.
“This enables us to see in near real time how we are consuming water and energy within the site through different production lines and different machinery,” Parkinson explains. “It is one thing to know how much we are using and another to understand how we are consuming it. That drives how we optimize our consumption.”
Outside of its operations, CCSWB leverages its digital solutions to support sustainability efforts in the communities it serves. For example, since 2023, the company has installed 21 smart recycling bins at American Airlines Center to boost recapture of plastic bottles.
As part of its technological advancements, CCSWB is also actively working to integrate its information technology network with the plants’ operational technology networks to create an “internet of things” (IOT) hub across all plants.
These solutions reduce unplanned downtime and help keep customers in stock. “When you can start harnessing data from all of the machinery and equipment we are running, then we can use data analytics to drive decision making and get actionable insights,” Parkinson says, noting its first application will be an AI predictive maintenance solution. “We can optimize the use of that equipment and maintain it before it fails.”
To continue supporting its customers with key digital solutions, CCSWB is planning to launch a new version of MyCoke.com, a platform that enables 25,000 mom-and-pop stores to calculate and place orders and pay invoices around the clock. Mass merchants and grocery chains have used this type of technology for years; CCSWB makes it available to independents that couldn’t build such sophisticated systems themselves. New capabilities will include automated marketing campaigns that are personalized to individual stores.
“We call it ‘MyCoke 360,’ because it’s part of our overall omni-channel view of how customers want to interact with us,” Parkinson says. “It has much more sophisticated algorithms to help customers determine what they need to order. We see it as a growth engine to recruit more customers onto the platform. We’re trying to help them, and ultimately it will help us to serve them better.”
Furthermore, the company is fine-tuning its frontline salesforce’s mobile automated tools. “We have a lot more capabilities coming in the next year,” Parkinson explains. While CCSWB is at the forefront of industrial and information technology, Parkinson emphasizes that it’s all in service of the people it employs and the customers it serves.
“We are constantly thinking about how we drive digital innovation to empower our workforce to do their jobs well, while giving our customers the best service,” Parkinson says.