Supply chain management careful attention paid process sees materials, information, finances move supplier manufacturer wholesaler retailer consumer. Supply chain management focuses efficiently effectively coordinating flows supply chain process companies. Supply chain management

True or false: Coca-Cola's experience with inventory forecasting supports the principles set forth by CPFR

The modern day economic agents function in a more and more dynamic business environment, in which they have to simultaneously serve the growing needs of numerous categories of stakeholders, such as customers, employees, business partners, the general public and so on. In such a setting, the firms devise and implement a wide array of methods and strategies by which to serve these needs and to also maximize their chances of attaining their pre-established business goals.

Given this complex setting, companies across the globe turn to supply chain management as a mechanism of integrating all actors which ensure the efficient creation of the products and their reaching the end consumer. The Coca Cola Company has devised its own supply chain management system and has implemented in it a highly successful manner. The Coca Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated used supply chain management to allow its field agents to collaborate on matters of inventory forecasts. The result of this decision was that of the slashing in half of the inventories and the absorption of 150 new products.

In such a setting, a question is being posed relative to the company's experience with inventory forecasting applications, namely whether this usage of inventory forecasting has supported the principles of collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment. In order to answer this question, it is first necessary to reveal the features of these principles, and then to reveal if and how these were attained by the Coca Cola Company.

In terms of idea creation, the scope of CPFR is that of "provid[ing] the leadership and innovation to reduce overall value chain costs and better serve our customers" (Voluntary Iterindustry Commerce Solutions, 2011).
Then, at the level of execution, the goals of the committee are to "own the CPFR framework, provide stewardship for it and keep it relevant; […] create the common language and standards." Last, in terms of education, the CPFR Committee aims to "drive understanding, adoption and implementation" (Voluntary Iterindustry Commerce Solutions, 2011).

The Coca Cola Company revealed an increased need to create these advantages for itself. And this need was generated by the increase in the company, its demand, its customer base, as well as its product palette. The Coca Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated is one of the largest bottlers of the globe and it distributes numerous product categories to various locations. The needs of the vendors differ based on predictable elements, such as size, market served, previous orders, but also on unpredictable situations, such as promotional sales, of which the bottler is not always informed.

In such a setting then, the firm became unable to quickly and efficiently react to the market it served. On occasions, it remained out of stock for specific vendors or with specific products, whereas at the general level, its inventories were too high. Facing these issues, the Coca Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated began to look for solutions that would attain a three fold objective. Specifically:

"First, it wanted to cut finished-goods inventory in half, from 12-14 days to six -- four days at the plant and two days at the distribution center, or in the store for the…