Case Study: CES leverages cloud to improve circular economy

Container Exchange Services (CES) is leverage cloud and ERP systems to improve the circular economy in Australia and enable drink container recycling.

The ecotech joint venture between Coca-Cola Euro Pacific partners and Lion Brewing facilitates the 10 cent refund for drink containers, connecting participants in the circular economy, including small businesses, community groups, waste management and logistics.

Digital Nation Australia spoke to Tim Reid, IT director at CES about how the business is leveraging Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning.
According to Reid, the business considered both Microsoft’s and SAP’s ecosystem before settling on Oracle.

“The Oracle ecosystem extends past just applications and cloud technology, but also into the partnership network and having access to great partners that can help us build our platform was really important as well. That was ultimately what got Oracle over the line,” said Reid.

Since deploying the solutions CES has reduced beverage container litter in Queensland by almost half and doubled the amount of containers recycled in Western Australia he said.

“Through our digital customer experience platform and our point of sale system, we facilitated the collection of 4.85 billion containers returning over $485 million to consumers. And through our auction platform that's built on Oracle cloud, we've also facilitated the sale of over 520,000 tons of reclaimed plastic, aluminium and glass from both Queensland and Western Australia to accredited for recyclers.”

The biggest challenge facing the business is catering to the bespoke needs of CES’s diverse set of users, said Reid.

“We've heavily invested in product management and techniques like design thinking to ensure we build solutions that are great for market. We've been adopting digital practices and cloud technology through Oracle and we no longer have those challenges of moving and scaling quickly.”

According to Cherie Ryan, vice president and regional managing director for Oracle ANZ, “CES plays a critical role in helping Australia achieve its recycling and sustainability goals.

“The combination of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Cloud ERP will ensure CES is able to embrace continuous innovation and expand its services to make it easier for its customers to keep plastic containers out of landfills.”