INTRODUCTION: Coca Cola is a well known brand of the carbonated soft drink industry.

The global nature of business of Coca Cola has highest standard and processes for ensuring product safety and quality right from concentrate production to bottling and product delivery. Coca Cola measures key product and packaging quality attributes to ensure the beverage products meet the company requirements and customer expectations in the marketplace. Consistency and reliability are critical to our product quality and to meet the global regulatory requirements and company standards. The company produces concentrate which is then sold to licensed Coca Cola bottlers who hold territorially exclusive contracts with the company which in turn produce finished product in cans and bottles. The carbonated soft drink is produced by mixing the concentrate in combination with filtered water and sweeteners. The bottlers then sell, distribute and merchandise Coca Cola to retail stores and vending machines.

THE PRODUCT: The beverage Coca Cola is a carbonated soft drink which is very popular all over the world. The main ingredients of the product are: Treated water Sugar Carbon di-oxide Concentrate

The treated water content in the final product is maximum, approximately 85% of the total mixture. The ground water is treated with some chemicals in order to make the hardness of water similar to all other places across the world where ever the product is produced. The current standard for measuring the hardness of water followed at Coca Cola is less than 100 ppm. The treated water makes the taste of Coca Cola same throughout the world. The treatment of water also removes the impurities and microbes. The concentrate is manufactured at Pune and circulated throughout the country. The concentrate is packed in 20 liter jars. The cost of concentrate is very high in comparison of all other contents. The sugar is used to make concentrated syrup which is also treated to match with the quality standards of Coca Cola. The process of making the concentrated syrup is simple, water is boiled and sugar is mixed which is agitated continuously. Some chemicals are used to remove the impurities form the concentrate. Quantity of each ingredients Concentrate (5%) CO2 Sugar (10%) Cost of each ingredient in the final product Treated water CO2 Sugar

Treated water (85%)

Concentrate

Proportion of content in final product.

Contribution to the price of the product.

BOTTLE WASHING PROCEDURE: The carbonated soft drink is packed in Reusable Glass Bottle (RGB). The reusable glass bottle is collected from the market and the washing procedure is done. The bottles are kept in case or carets. The RGB is collected from the market and loaded on the conveyor belt. The bottles are uncased and put on the conveyor belt for the washing procedure. The pre-inspection is done of the glass bottles so that any defective bottle is removed in the initial stage itself. The RGB is then put into the bottle washing machine. In the washing procedure first step is the jetting which is followed by soaking. The water jet with high pressure is used to wash the bottle. In the jetting machine a pump is used to create a high pressure jet of water. The water falls in the container itself and again re-pumped to the jet. In the next step soaking is done. The soaking is a procedure done to remove all the impurities and microbes from the bottle before the soft drink is poured into it. A solution of NaOH (sodium hydroxide) is used for cleaning the bottles. A range of temperature around 72 degree to 75 degree Celsius is maintained throughout the soaking process. The mixture of sodium hydroxide and other chemicals is prepared in which the NaOH content is around 2.8% to 3%. There are two soaker machines Soaker 1 and Soaker 2 through which the RGB pass on over the conveyor belt. The bottles which come out of the soaker machine are tested on two parameters and the testing is mainly done for checking: a) Caustic carry over to check whether there is any amount of sodium hydroxide left over in the bottle. There should not be any trace of NaOH content inside the bottle which will hamper the quality of the soft drink in it. b) Microbes the RGBs are tested for the presence of microbes also. There should not be any kind of microbe present in the glass bottle. The whole process of bottle washing takes around 20 minutes.

The washing procedure: Reusable Glass Bottle (RGB) collected from the market (in carets)

Loading on conveyor belt Uncased Pre - inspection

Bottle washing machine Jetting

Soaking

Testing Caustic carry over

Microbes

BEVERAGE PREPARATION PROCESS: The carbonated soft drink preparation process involves the following steps: a) b) c) d) e) f) Syrup preparation. Treated water preparation. Mixing preparation. Filtering preparation. Filler machine Chilling process

Syrup preparation: The syrup is prepared by mixing the concentrate and the sugar solution. Some chemicals are also used to remove the impurities from the syrup. The process of syrup preparation for 43200 liters of soft drink (9000 carets*24 bottles per caret*200 ml per bottle) takes 8 hours Treated water preparation: The ground water is treated with some chemicals to remove the impurities and reduce the hardness of water to 100 ppm. Mixing preparation: the treated water and the prepared syrup is mixed together to form the final mixture which is then carbonated and filled in bottles. The treated water and the syrup are mixed in a fixed proportion of 4.5:1 i.e. 4.5 ml of treated water and 1 ml of concentrate is mixed. Filtering preparation: the mixture is filtered to remove all the impurities at this stage only so that it does not get carried forward in the bottles. Filler machine: the filtered mixture of treated water and syrup is filled in the bottles which have been cleaned in the bottle washing machine and then tested for caustic carry over and microbes. Chilling machine: the mixture which is filled in the RGB is chilled and then CO2 is passed through it. The chiller machine used some chemical to reduce the temperature and quickly cool the bottles.

Process Flow Diagram of the Beverage Preparation process

Syrup preparation Treated water preparation

Mixing preparation Filtering preparation

Filling machine Chilling preparation

QUALITY STANDARDS AT COCA COLA: The quality at the Coca Cola plant is measured throughout the world at the same standard. The two major quality standards are: BPQI (Beverage Product Quality Indicator) PCQI (Primary Container Quality Indicator)

Beverage Product Quality Indicator: There are five main parameters to measure the quality of the beverage, viz. a) Appearance the basic parameter to check the quality of a beverage is to check its appearance. The transparency of the beverage liquid is tested by the customer first hand, so it is tested on this basic parameter initially. b) Taste the taste of the beverage is very essential for the quality parameter. The taste of Coca Cola should be essentially same throughout the world then only it will be acceptable to the customers. c) Brix it denotes the percentage of sugar in the beverage. The sugar content is maintained at the standard level so that the final product is as sweet as it should be. d) CO2 (gas) the CO2 content in the final product should be maintained as per the quality standard so that the acidity and fizz in the beverage is accepted by the customer. e) Microbe this test is very essential for the beverage so as to make it fit to drink. The presence of any kind of impurities will render the final product inedible causing danger to the health of the consumer. A quality product must be fir for use by the customer (Juran) Primary Container Quality Indicator: There are five main parameters to measure the quality of the final product (bottle of 200 ml of soft drink). a) Closure condition the final product must be closed properly so that the fizz of the soft drink is maintained till it reaches the final consumer. The crown of the glass bottle must be tight enough to preserve the fizz but it should not be so tightly closed that the bottle breaks while opening the bottle to drink the soft drink. b) Closure function it is essential while filling the glass bottles with the soft drink to check that there is no any mismatch between the printed label on the bottle and the type of soft drink filled into it. Like for example filling a bottle with a label of sprite with thumps-up will put a question on the quality check parameters of Coca Cola. c) Container condition the container condition after final packing is inspected so that they can be forwarded to the date machine. Each bottle is inspected by the machine and if the machine finds any discrepancy in any bottle then it will reject the bottle. These are counted as wastages. The normal loss in the process is expected to be around 5%. 7

d) Date code the date code machine imprints the manufacture date and batch code. e) Net content (volume) the net content of the soft drink inside the bottle must be measured so that the company delivers quality product which has conformance to specification (Crosby). There can be a variation of 0.25% in the measurement of the net content volume. The plant follows a standard for the measurement of number of units produced. 1 unit of Thumps-up of 200 ml bottles = 9000 carets 1 caret = 24 bottles Calculation of BPQI: Standard is assumed to be 20 and the observed value from the sample is found out. Samples are collected from anywhere in the market. The efficiency is calculated in percentage terms. Efficiency = actual observation/standard*100 a) b) c) d) e) Appearance = 19/20*100 =95% Taste = 20/20*100 = 100% Brix = 18/20*100 = 90% CO2 = 15/20*100 = 75% Microbe = 20/20*100 =100%

BPQI = (19/20)*(20/20)*(18/20)*(15/20)*(20/20) This BPQI indicator shows the quality product which meets the set standards of Coca Cola.

Flow Diagram of the Production Process at Coca Cola:

Bottle washing machine

Electronic bottle inspection

Para mixing machine (Treated water+ ready syrup + gas)

Filler machine

Crowning

Date code machine

Final inspection

Caser

Loading on the pallets

Shipping

Market/ final customer

QUALITY CERTIFICATION: The quality of Coca-Cola production is labeled with the ISO 9001:2000 quality certificate given by the SGS independent Certifying Agency in Belgium as well as with the 14001:1996 environment certificates. Coca Cola measure key product and package quality attributes by focusing on ingredients and materials, and regulating manufacturing, bottling and distribution, of the products to ensure they meet Company requirements and consumer expectations in the marketplace. The global nature of the business requires that the Coca-Cola system has the highest standards and processes to ensure consistent quality right from the concentrate production to the bottling and product delivery. To ensure such consistency and reliability, the Coca-Cola system is governed by the Coca-Cola Operating Requirements (KORE), a new management system which replaced The Coca-Cola Management System (TCCMS) in January 2010. KORE guarantees the highest standards in product safety and quality, occupational safety and health and environmental standards across the entire Coca-Cola system by outlining clear requirements for the policies, specifications and programs that guide the operations. KORE integrates business and quality objectives and aligns them with consistent metrics to monitor performance, it integrates preventive action as a management tool with more rigorous demands when introducing new products and services; incorporates Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) into the system standards; manages risk in the Company, bottling operations and across the supply chain; and defines problem-solving methods and tools to drive consistent quality with improvements.

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CONCLUSION: This project on quality management system at Coca Cola was a great learning experience. The Quality Management System at Coca Cola is a standardized system which is same throughout the world. Owing to the quality product which has been trusted and approved by all its consumers and suppliers the quality standards are set high and the processes are designed as such to adhere to those standards. The production process is

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