LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT SMALL-SIZED CRAFT BREWERIES (WHO PRODUCE UP TO 20K BBL ANNUALLY) AND THE MOST COMMON BUSINESS CHALLENGES THEY FACE.
Growing Pain: Disconnected Accounting, Operations, and Distribution
Solution: Centralized Data Between Departments
Find a system that provides a centralized database, making all master files and transactions available in one place. By finding a system with a centralized database, it allows for analysis at the click of a mouse. VicinityBrew with QuickBooks Online or Microsoft Dynamics® includes user-friendly query tools that allow even novices to build personalized inquiries to streamline data review. Queries can also be printed and exported to Excel and saved for on-demand access.
VicinityBrew provides a real-time financial, distribution, manufacturing and inventory-control system. As transactions process organization-wide, they’re posted directly to the financial records. Month-end financial statements and supporting schedules are prepared and issued with little effort.
Growing Pain: Unexpected Out of Stock Events
Solution: Implement Tighter Inventory Control
Craft breweries need a solution that gives them the ability to analyze ongoing material requirements using existing sales orders or forecasts. In VicinityBrew, when running MRP, material requirements are stored by date and quickly accessible for review. The result is future capital requirements of inventory that are easily identifiable. VicinityBrew lets you review anticipated raw material shortages based on a centralized production schedule. Deficits can be calculated by item and day and can take into account both lead time and safety stock. You can routinely review this data and create purchase orders for items and quantities to specified suppliers.
Growing Pain: Poor Recipe Management
Solution: Get Off Excel Spreadsheets
VicinityBrew tracks recipes in a centralized database by recipe type and version number. It’s a snap to find the correct recipe based on user-defined search criteria. Having an organized and manageable database to work from can eliminate time spent sifting through large data sets (or multiple Excel workbooks). New versions or one-off recipes can easily be created and managed with indicators, such as active versus inactive, until the brewmaster has approved them for production. Once a recipe version has run its course, it can be archived and also marked for view-only access. You can also create a new version of a formula from an existing version.
With VicinityBrew, production logs are created directly from the master recipe. This structure ensures that any material substitutions or operational changes reflect in each production run of the recipe. There will be no worries about whether you’re working with the most accurate recipe version. Product specification sheets can be generated directly from the record of production logs associated with a particular brew, ensuring that production changes automatically update on the spec sheet, delivering consistent information throughout your supply chain—and no unpleasant surprises for your customer. To get more information about VicinityBrew software, or to schedule a demo, contact us today.
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