Nor-Cal Beverage provides fountain syrup and juice products, beverage dispensing systems (for soft drinks, juice, coffee, beer, wine, and liquor), and various related equipment including refrigeration systems, beverage systems, complete convenience store packages, and customized walk-in coolers and freezers, domestically and internationally. Today in Northern California, Nor-Cal Beverage operates four full-service branches that provide sales, customer service, vending service, food service, local delivery, and equipment maintenance. But the real growth has come from adding name brand beverage products and the manufacturing processes to match.

In 1998, Nor-Cal Beverage installed mass flow blending equipment, a filler for soft drink products, and a spring water bottling line. Highly-automated processing equipment is used to fill PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, cans, water bottles, bag-in-box fountain syrups, and other beverage-related containers. Blue Horseshoe implemented Manhattan Associates ILS 2007.1 suite of products at the company’s Anaheim, CA site in March of 2008. ILS was seamlessly incorporated into both the inbound receiving operation and the beverage production lines.

ILS is used to manage all aspects of a products life cycle, including all raw materials and the eventual production of finished goods. RF technology was introduced to the workforce for both the inbound and outbound operations. Blue Horseshoe worked closely with the Nor-Cal operations team to streamline operational efficiency as well as to perform ILS integrations services along with configuration, testing, and training of both the super users and the daily user group.

The implementation of ILS allowed Nor-Cal to realize increased operational efficiency as well as increased inventory accuracy, while reducing the amount of clerical interaction and manual data entry. Additionally, more comprehensive lot tracking was introduced, allowing Nor-Cal to become compliant with customer demands for enhanced product recall ability. ILS also positions Nor-Cal to introduce further automation into their beverage fill and production lines.