The IT firm that runs Coca-Cola’s bottle manufacturing supply chain processes has its eyes set on the power of blockchain technology.

Coke One North America (CONA) says its pilot project with software provider SAP is now ready for expansion from two to 70 of the manufacturers that deliver the 160,000 bottles Coca-Cola shops daily.

The blockchain project is the new-age way of enhancing distribution for the participants. This is made possible because of the access that is granted to all manufacturers to the permissioned Blockchain. The permissioned Blockchain comprises of data on each other’s orders, capabilities, and requirements. 

For example, if a bottle maker is short of stock for an order that’s right around the corner, the network sends immediate options for filling the shortfall. CONA told BI that it is hopeful that they will be able to decrease order reconciliation from weeks to just days.

A senior manager at Coke One North America, Andrei Semenov, said, “There are several transactions that are cross-companies and multi-party that are inefficient, they go through intermediaries, they are very slow. And we felt that we could improve this and save some money.”

The first stage of success of the pilot program meant more bottles shipped. But in addition to that, it also paved the way for more companies to come to SAP’s platform. 

Semenov said that CONA is keen to work with commerce giants Walmart and Target as a result, though scaling to function with those firms’ supply chains would be a difficult undertaking, he mentioned.

“What we achieved here with blockchain is creating a document flow across the supply chain,” said Torsten Zube, head of SAP’s Innovation Center Network.

PepsiCo, which is undoubtedly Coca-Cola’s number one competition, conducted a blockchain trial in May. As per the firm, its decision has led to a rise in efficiency by 28 percent. Dubbed “Project Proton,” the supply chain trial was run on Zilliqa’s blockchain platform.