Leading Manufacturing Companies – Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB)

HCCB is now one of the top 5 FMCG companies in India, with revenues in excess of Rs 9,000 crore. A few months ago, it announced its ambition to become a $2.5 billion company by 2020. As a part of its growth plan, HCCB aims to open 1 million outlets. This is besides the 2 million outlets it already operates. The ambition by itself is disruptive and challenging. Distributing across 3 million outlets for a business that still uses 2-way returnable glass bottles, which are manufactured at 21 factories across the country, in packages, sizes and SKUs that are more than 150 in number, is a massive challenge.
Add to all this, the level of disruption in digitisation, changes in the transportation space, introduction of manufacturing technology for beverages like FormFill technology (forms and fills plastic bottles in one step. Instead of injecting sterilised air to expand the PET preform, this machine directly injects the liquid content) are rapid changes.
“Supply Chain in beverage business is changing – manufacturing (effective, efficient and disruptive technologies), transportation (finding least cost and quickest way to reach products), maintenance of factories and assets (predictive maintenance versus prescriptive), capability development of people (training drivers), and is the an exciting time for SCM.