Founded in 2016, CONA Services LLC is an IT services company owned and governed by the 11 largest Coca-Cola bottlers in North America. CONA is a strategic partner that provides its bottlers with a common set of processes, data standards, and technology platforms. CONA solutions and services have been rolled out to more than 500 locations in the U.S. and Canada, representing 80,000 employees and more than $21 billion in annual revenue.
Success Story
CONA
Demand Planning, Supply Planning, Inventory Optimization, Transportation Management, Sequencing and S&OP
CONA services partners with Blue Yonder to drive automation for Coca-Cola bottlers
Das Unternehmen
Die geschäftliche Herausforderung
Coca-Cola bottlers across North America face common supply chain challenges shared by other consumer packaged goods (CPG) leaders, including demand volatility, raw materials availability issues, and labor shortages. These supply chain constraints are compounded by having to optimize plans every day across an entire continent.
Die Lösung
In order to address the supply chain challenges faced by its bottlers, CONA Services implemented an end-to-end portfolio of Blue Yonder solutions to help with demand planning, supply planning, inventory optimization, transportation management, production planning and sequencing, and sales and operations planning. As a result, the bottlers have benefitted from more reliable demand, supply, transportation, and production plans to improve their inventory positions.
“When you tackle a complex problem — like optimally planning Coca-Cola’s bottling across a continent each day — you need more than just a software provider. You need a trusted partner that’s deeply invested in your success. That’s the relationship CONA has with Blue Yonder. It’s exciting to see the value Blue Yonder delivers to our bottlers and tally up the wins. Furthermore, with Blue Yonder’s recent investment in product innovation, the new product roadmap and the expanding platform powered by Snowflake, we’re even more excited about our future with Blue Yonder.”
–Baron Jordan, Chief Product Officer of Supply Chain for CONA Services
Improving supply chain resilience with active operations monitoring and automation
Every morning, CONA Services monitors its Blue Yonder dashboards, applications, and key performance indicators (KPIs) across its entire operations. If there are any disruptions or deviations from plan, these issues are resolved collaboratively before they have a significant impact on the supply chain performance of the bottlers. This daily tactical planning session complements CONA’s long-range planning efforts, ensuring all bottlers are on track to achieve optimal cost and service outcomes.
As a result, CONA’s planners have benefited from increases in speed and efficiency, while also freeing up time for higher-value work, ultimately delivering better service to their bottling partners. Some key benefits include:
Inventory improvements
CONA bottlers have seen significant improvement in inventory positions, reduced “days of supply,” decreased out-of-stock situations, and a several percentage points increase in demand forecast accuracy.
Increased visibility and greater insights
Blue Yonder provides more visibility to CONA bottlers so they can dig deeper into the data and use its analytics and planning capabilities for better and more reliable demand, supply, transportation, and production plans. It has made them more resilient by putting a cohesive enterprise planning solution together in one place.
Increased automation by 70%
CONA has also gained from automating numerous processes that were previously highly manual. In some cases, it has seen an increase by 70%. This means, CONA and bottler associates enjoy a better user experience and have more flexibility to focus on critical tasks and improve their performance.
Artificial intelligence, Snowflake, and the Blue Yonder platform
CONA is not resting on its laurels. It is already experimenting with artificial intelligence specifically within demand forecasting, gathering data, classifying data, and examining use cases. It has also launched a pilot program with one of its bottlers to explore the potential added benefits of Blue Yonder Cognitive Demand Planning, which is powered by the Blue Yonder platform and includes the latest AI and ML technology.
Looking ahead, CONA is starting to move from a private cloud to the public cloud utilizing Microsoft Azure, while also planning to re-platform the solution onto the Blue Yonder Platform (powered by Snowflake Data Cloud). Together, these changes will improve latency and speed to drive its business to the next level. Blue Yonder is proud to partner with CONA every step of the way.
Data sharing without the hassles
The Blue Yonder Data Share App simplifies data integration for Blue Yonder customers using Snowflake, regardless of their cloud provider or region. Cutting down on the complexity of data pipelines also accelerates time to value and minimizes operational overhead, so teams can concentrate on strategic initiatives. Available through a private listing in the Snowflake Marketplace, the Data Share App makes data-driven decisions even more efficient and scalable.
