Automating Coca-Cola Equipment Services Requests

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Coca-Cola Bottlers’ Sales & Services (“CCBSS”) is a business services organization that provides finance, human resources and contact center operations services to Coca-Cola bottlers throughout North America.  Historically a business unit within Coca-Cola, CCBSS was spun out as an independent unit in tandem with their new independent bottler initiative.

Beginning in 2018 CCBSS launched a suite of shared services suite to newly independent Coca-Cola bottlers throughout North America.  In this new entrepreneurial environment, CCBSS could no longer count on a set of internal customers and instead needed to provide a value proposition superior to other shared services market leaders (and bottlers themselves).  CCBSS doubled down on the use of new digital services for improved execution and business information sharing to form one of their main differentiators.

MercuryWorks teamed with CCBSS to combine proven digital technologies and strategies to design and develop an integrated technology and engagement platform.  Utilizing a new cloud-heavy technology infrastructure, CCBSS’s digital transformation was made up of multiple initiatives including a mobile field app for Coke beverage equipment servicing.  This modernized and mobile system touches nearly every facet of CCBSS’s business from their clients’ warehouse and delivery trucks to their own distributed workforce.

The resulting platform is comprised of a system of interrelated collaboration platforms, extranets, mobile apps, line-of-business apps and databases including.  The Equipment Repair system was built to scale vertically and horizontally atop a service-oriented architecture enabling CCBSS to expand its client base and service offerings.  Spearheaded by an iOS and Android app utilized by bottler field personnel, the mission-critical system helps CCBSS better serve its bottling customers that touch hundreds of thousands of customers throughout North America.

features

Secure Equipment Service Requests

Equipment Scanning

The Equipment Repair Request app enables bottler employees to scan the barcode on any piece of Coke equipment using their mobile device’s built-in camera.  Users can also type in the equipment’s serial number or even upload a photo of a barcode sent to them by another employee or even the customer.

Geolocation

The app also provides an easy means of locating equipment – via their mobile device’s geolocation signal.  Bottler staff simply tap ‘Find by Outlet’ and the app lists all customer locations within their immediate vicinity.  The user can expand their search radius, modify search parameters and even view customer locations on a map.  The app will list all Coke equipment at any location and streamline a service request.

Placing Service Requests

Regardless of the means by which the user locates Coke equipment, the service request form is the last step of the process.  CCBSS staff tap in service request inputs such as the reported problem, customer contact information and available service hours and the app handles submission of the service request AND kicks off the workflow of dispatching service staff and service tracking.  CCBSS staff can then provide a service ticket to their customer and the ability to look up submitted tickets for follow-up.

results

final product

Example investment sale activity display and management
Example investment sale activity display and management
Invoice summary screen for use by all departments
Invoice summary screen for use by all departments
Agent commission distribution calculation and display
Agent commission distribution calculation and display
Complete system for management of firm-wide information
Complete system for management of firm-wide information
Detailed property tracking, contract history
Detailed property tracking, contract history
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“You want support from partners who are agile, insightful, and savvy. That’s what we get with Mercury. As a result, we lean on them heavily, whenever possible.”
Terrence Gee
Chief Information Officer

Built Using

For iPhone app construction using native Swift and Cocoa coding. Full native Xcode development provides a higher level of fidelity and code tuning that hybrid solutions like Cordova cannot match. Proximity notification and mapping are two key capabilities the Shine app needed to optimize.

For native Android development in Google’s Android Studio IDE. Again full native and bypassing development options such as Cordova was the right route to provide Coca-Cola Beverages Florida field staff with the app experience they were looking for.

AngularJS was coupled with .NET for admin and reporting single page app (SPA) suite. The rich SPA enabled rapid addition, editing and sunsetting of Shine route surveys as well as reporting (with Excel download) of real-time data as it came in from the field.

Provides database storage, web app, authentication and web services. Azure provides an ideal solution for back end mobile applications with a multi-data center Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud solution that requires extremely little oversight.

"Modernizing Coca-Cola Bottlers’ Sales & Services through applications like the equipment repair system has allowed us to begin delivering Services to our Business at a speed not previously possible without the help of MercuryWorks."
Mark Dunkerley
Sr. Manager,
IT Architecture and Systems

Built Using

The React and React Native JavaScript frameworks provide the UI base for the entire system, providing rapid and smooth data fetching, storage and screen painting.  React Native drives iOS and Android native apps for the bottler while React drives the administrative (single page) web application.

The Node.js JavaScript framework provides the system’s server-side framework for API endpoints including secure interchange, serverless execution and is coupled with OpenAPI/Swagger for service tier documentation.

Provides a robust data storehouse and query platform to store outlet data, equipment data and service request content.  In-cloud SQL Server was used to provide instant scalability and rapid querying.

Provides database storage, web app, authentication and web services. Azure provides an ideal solution for back end mobile applications with a multi-data center Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud solution that requires extremely little oversight. Azure Active Directory powers cloud-based authentication and authorization layer for all applications in the system.  User-facing code bases implement Microsoft’s ADAL JavaScript package for user and API security; B2B security features empower independent bottlers to control user identities while Coke BSNA retains control over their data.

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Service Requests

The new platform forms an integrated whole that shares components and information internally, with enterprise systems managed by Coca-Cola and collaboration outlets shared with each bottler.  Following the initial rollout of the digital service platform to address the equipment repair area, provision of additional service request types in domains like finance and human resources have been rolled out to bottlers.  The mission-critical system has resulted in the fulfillment of nearly 100,000 service requests and allows millions of consumers to Taste the Feeling of Coca-Cola daily.