Coca-Cola recognised for its automation efforts in Singapore

SINGAPORE – When Coca-Cola Singapore saw a need to meet growing demand for its products, it introduced automation solutions in 2021.

One of the solutions is automated forklifting, which uses automated guided vehicles that are able to adapt their routes depending on the situation.

The vehicles have reduced manual forklifting by 33 per cent.

For these efforts, Coca-Cola was recognised by the World Economic Forum’s Global Lighthouse Network, a community of industry leaders pioneering the use of Industry 4.0.

Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong acknowledged the company’s automation efforts during a visit to its concentrate manufacturing plant on Oct 22.

The plant is where Coca-Cola manufactures the concentrate and beverage base and sells its products to its global network of bottling partners.

“(Coca-Cola) has been consistently investing in Singapore and building Singapore into a regional headquarters and a very important strategy manufacturing site in the global Coca-Cola group,” said DPM Gan, who is also Minister for Trade and Industry.

In 2021, the beverage giant embarked on a digital transformation for all areas of its operations, and Singapore was chosen as one of three lighthouse plants to lead the transformation across the network, said Mr Iain McLaughlin, president of global commercial product supply at Coca-Cola.

“We chose Singapore because of its strategic importance to our business – it’s in the heart of a fast-growing and very strategically important area for the company – and the quality of the local talent base. We have an excellent team here in Singapore,” said Mr McLaughlin.

Another one of Coca-Cola’s automation solutions is a dynamic scheduler, which it developed with the Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre and a local integrator known as PD Solutions.

The dynamic scheduler can do production scheduling on Excel in one hour – a task that would usually take three days to do manually, said Mr McLaughlin.

“We also developed Sara, which is our AI chatbot. Sara makes the life of the people on the shop floor easier by giving access to lots of learning information, even things like manuals, but doing it in an educated and very smart way in order to help us improve operations,” said Mr McLaughlin.

The chatbot is also able to troubleshoot solutions for automated guided vehicles.

Since Coca-Cola started the transformation, it has seen a 28 per cent increase in throughput, a 70 per cent boost in labour productivity and a 31 per cent improvement in on-time deliveries.

“We look forward to continuing the long-term partnership with you, investing in research and development, creativity, innovation and the use of artificial intelligence,” said DPM Gan.

“And we hope that you not only invest in your own company but also invest in building the ecosystem.

“Given that all of us understand that the world today is a changed world, it has a lot of uncertainties going forward, not just because of the tariffs but because of the whole geopolitical situation and the changing economic landscape, restructuring supply chains and manufacturing bases,” he added.

Said Mr McLaughlin: “We look forward to continuing both to leverage the ecosystem and to contribute to it, because benefiting from it means we have a responsibility to continue to grow it and invest in its future.”