June 01, 2009, 11:39 AM — 2009 InfoWorld CTO 25 Awards
Kevin Flowers
Director of enabling technologies
Coca-Cola Enterprises
At first blush, equipping delivery people with mobile devices seems old hat; the industry began moving to mobile devices for tracking trucks, goods, deliveries, and staff for a good decade. Signing an electronic pad to confirm delivery, using a cell phone rather than a payphone to call in to headquarters, entering time sheets over a mobile device, and even tracking truck locations to make sure drivers aren't wasting time or gas are all old news.
But Kevin Flowers had a new idea. The director of enabling technologies for Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), the bottling and delivery company that brings the famous soda to store shelves, Flowers realized that equipping drivers with mobile devices provided a wealth of data for analytics beyond the trucks and deliveries. For example, analyzing delivery people's individual movements through GPS tracking revealed one delivery person moving back and forth within a store. When headquarters called this person, they discovered that he was moving hundreds of cases of Coca-Cola products using a grocery cart because the store did not have a pallet loader (which its service-level agreement required it to have).
That sort of ongoing analytics helps CCE fine-tune the efforts of its 10,500 merchandisers, the people who deliver the soda and place it on shelves, and who are the first line of insight as to changing buying patterns: Is one type running out faster than others? Do end-of-aisle promotions move more product?
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