Thinking Out-of-the-Box Puts Soft Drinks in the Cans

A major soft-drink bottler found themselves devoting too much space in their beverage plant to warehousing aluminum can stock, compromising production. They needed total visibility and control of both the raw materials and finished can product, as well as the flexibility to meet demands due to seasonal peaks and promotions. And, of course, quality process and control were critical.

Greatwide™ Distribution Logistics worked with them to create a supply-chain solution that integrates raw materials, finished can bodies, filled product and transportation as a single-source scenario.

Greatwide™ delivers raw aluminum sheets to be fed into a press and turned into cans, then palletizes the finished cans and stores them in dedicated warehouses. Inspecting the cans for quality errors at this stage reduces charge-backs. With 57' roller-bed trailers, we provide just-in-time delivery to get the can bodies to the filling plants with increased pallet/truck ratio. Specialized equipment unloads them directly to the production lines, reducing transportation costs and increasing plant productivity. Greatwide™ trucks then transport the filled product to a separate warehouse nearby or to major distributors and customers throughout the region as needed.

Our network of multiple warehouses maximizes space and labor flexibility, while centralized customer service reduces overhead. The improved warehousing and transportation efficiencies allow the bottler to both reduce inventory levels and increase cycle times.

The right warehouse and logistics solutions really can put some fizz in beverage profits.