Case Study: East Africa Breweries achieves 15% higher forecast accuracy and bottle-return forecasting with Demand Solutions

A Toast to Supply Chain Success

East Africa Breweries, a Nairobi‑based brewer with more than 1,000 employees and a complex network of breweries, distilleries and distribution, struggled to plan sales and manage its returnable‑bottle program using spreadsheets. To replace error‑prone Excel processes and gain visibility into both product demand and bottle returns, East Africa Breweries engaged Demand Solutions to deploy forecasting, replenishment and manufacturing‑planning modules.

Demand Solutions implemented forecasting, replenishment and DS Manufacturing Planning, integrating optimized plans into SAP and enabling visibility by product, brand, customer and region. The solution revealed customers return 80–90% of bottles, cut estimated bottle purchases, improved finished‑goods forecast accuracy from 70% to 80% (a 15% gain), optimized capacity across four plants and allowed scheduled maintenance without disrupting production.

East Africa Breweries