DWS 00299

PMS 0027

BRUICHLADDICH

SOLARSOFT FOR MANUFACTURING

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

At-a-glance• Industry: Whisky Distillery• Location: Islay, Argyll & Bute, UK

Key Challenges• Constraints in monitoring efficiency,

optimising production activities and stock levels, due to rapid growth

• Core processes handled manually using spreadsheets

• Difficulty in reconciling stock numbers

Solution• Tropos ERP• Whisky Workbench

Key Benefits• Increased accuracy due to complete

visibility across the business• Complete control of stock levels and values, increasing speed and accuracy of month end reporting• HMRC reporting at the click of a button, saving several days’ labour• Worldwide access to real-time stock information, resulting in shorter lead times on export orders

THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT THE TROPOS SOLUTION HAS MADE OUR BUSINESS MORE CONTROLLABLE AND MORE EASILY ACCESSIBLE. This is important not only to the company, but to the people who work here. It has transformed what we do.Simon Coughlin Operations Director Bruichladdich

DWS 00299

SOLARSOFT ADDS KEY ERP INGREDIENT TO BRUICHLADDICH Solarsoft’s Tropos ERP software cuts lead times by over a week, eliminates overtime and delivers HMRC reporting at the click of a button at Scottish whisky distillery Bruichladdich.

Bruichladdich is a small, privately-owned Scottish distillery on the remote Atlantic Isle of Islay. It specialises in producing artisanal single malt whisky, just as it was in 1881.

The business is growing at a rate of 10-15% a year, its latest annual revenues exceeding £7.5 million. As a result of this growth, Bruichladdich found that it was becoming increasingly hard to efficiently monitor and optimise its production activities and stock levels. The company makes over 100 different products, which is a lot in the whisky industry.

Although Bruichladdich had installed an automated system for managing bulk stock movements in recent years, many of its core processes, including those managing the bottling side of the business, were still handled manually using spreadsheets.

“As the business grew, we found we had to throw more and more people at the administration,” recalls Simon Coughlin, Operations Director at Bruichladdich.

“It was becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile stock numbers; things had become difficult operationally.”

Meanwhile, due to the growth of its business, the distillery was coming under increasing pressure from HM Revenue & Customs to implement approved systems for financial reporting.

CALLING IN THE EXPERTS Bruichladdich had asked its existing software provider to develop a system that would automate the management of its bottling operations. When the system eventually materialised, however, Simon Coughlin was disappointed with its scope.

This prompted the distillery to approach Solarsoft, which has a comprehensive portfolio of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions covering all aspects of process manufacturing and distribution. This included modules specifically designed for managing distillery businesses.

Coughlin says, “We read about the Tropos ERP system in a trade magazine article. It appealed because it would allow us to automate and control all aspects of the business. We wanted a system that could extend right from the front end of the business – something we could

use as a customer database, managing everything from incoming orders to eventual export.

Bruichladdich has implemented an integrated suite of solutions from Solarsoft, based around the company’s core Tropos ERP system. This includes Tropos Whisky Workbench, a module which gives complete control over cask stocks and blending.

Together, these products allow the distillery to record, track and manage all orders, stock levels, production planning, bottling/packing and despatch on an end-to-end basis.

“Often, companies put in automated systems later down the line, to reduce overheads,” Coughlin notes. “We wanted to strike proactively, investing in better systems up front so that we wouldn’t have to reduce staff numbers later.”

The systems were up and running within a year of the initial approach to Solarsoft, which impressed Coughlin and his team. “Tropos is completely embedded in our organisation now, from buying barley to bottling and storing the whisky, right through to export,” he says. “It’s all-encompassing. We can’t operate without it.”

ACCELERATED EXPORTSVisibility is a significant area of improvement. “Tropos is a live system, with accurate, up-to-date, integrated data from right across the business, including bulk, production, bottling and despatch,” Coughlin explains. “Tropos links everything together seamlessly, even integrating with our i2i export document management system, another solution that Solarsoft recommended, which takes care of export paperwork.”

DWS 00299

The impact on the productivity and efficiency of the business has been “enormous”, he notes. Most significantly, Bruichladdich is now processing export orders at least a week faster than previously. “Being on a small island, our lead times can be quite long, but now our sales teams around the world can log in and see our stock,” he says. “They no longer have to send an email or wait until the next day to be able to check our supplies.”

The accountants have a much easier time now, too. “The number-crunchers are more comfortable that we are in control of our stock and what its value is,” says Coughlin. “There are very, very few surprises now. Before Tropos, we were under a lot of mental stress and strain, especially when it came to doing the month-end returns for HMRC. We needed to relieve that pressure.”

Now, fully automated HMRC reporting has reduced this process from several days’ effort (spent consolidating fragmented data from across 4-5 departments) to a simple click of a button. And when HMRC conducted an audit recently, the process

took no more than a day, with no concerns raised. “Before, the audit might have taken 2-3 days, but it went very smoothly. More importantly, we had complete confidence in the data,” he adds.

FROM FIRE-FIGHTING TO BUSINESS FORECASTING If Bruichladdich hadn’t implemented Tropos, it would have at least 2-3 additional staff looking after administration by now, Coughlin calculates. “That figure would be even higher if the market was stronger. Before Tropos, peak periods demanded a lot of administrative overtime and late nights, which wasn’t great for people and was costing us money. Now everything is running smoothly, live information is readily accessible, and we have full confidence that it is accurate.”

Previously, staff could spend ‘forever’ reconciling information before they could see a clear picture of any aspect of the business, he says; now they can be more proactive because up-to-the-minute information is available on tap. The need for overtime during peak periods has been eliminated as a result, while managers are now able to allocate more time and energy to strategic planning.

Says Coughlin, “In my own case, the Tropos system means I am no longer immersed in the day-to-day detail. I have a lot more brain space to look at the business as a whole, which means I can look at new suppliers, consider stock levels and formulate new plans – the things I could never get to before, because I always had problems in my face.”

Currently, Bruichladdich is in the process of extending Tropos,(including mobile barcode

scanning), into a new warehouse facility for storing bottled products. Here, Tropos Mobile RBA (Role-Based Applications) will be used to track and record movements in real time, using the latest handheld scanners. “The aim is to avoid using paper, to maintain efficiency and keep our lead times down,” Coughlin explains.

Looking ahead, he would like to see the distillery further exploit the business forecasting facilities of the Tropos system, to boost strategic planning. “There is so much more that Tropos can do,” he notes.

With Solarsoft’s close support, Bruichladdich is in good hands. “I’ve been very, very impressed with Solarsoft from the beginning of this whole process,” Coughlin concludes. They have shown a complete and in-depth understanding of our business from start to finish, and the implementation has been exceptional. Whereas other software providers in the past haven’t always delivered, Solarsoft has delivered exactly what was promised.

“There is no question that the Tropos solution has made our business more controllable and more easily accessible. This is important not only to the company, but to the people who work here. It has transformed what we do.”

CONTACT SOLARSOFT FOR A DEMONSTRATION

SOLARSOFT EUROPE+44 (0)8447 700900

SOLARSOFT NORTH AMERICA+1 (905) 224 2222

SOLARSOFT ASIA+86 21 6328 7596

www.solarsoft.com

Photographs courtesy of Bruichladdich