A digital operating platform designed to give distillers insight on how to connect workflows, streamline processes and manage inventory is now being utilised by students at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University International Centre for Brewing and Distilling (ICBD)
This partnership between Proof 8 and Heriot-Watt University aims to give graduates hands-on experience with “the digital tools actually being used today”.
According to the manufacturer, graduates would previously learn the ins and outs of fermentation, distilling and maturation but lacked teaching on the operational side.
This would include how to record and track the analytical progress and results from experimental brews and distillations, and creating compliant HMRC returns when it is built from a digital system rather than assembled from a spreadsheet the week it is due.
Using the system, students can plan and record production, track assets, and see analytical progress and results from experimental brews and distillations, on the same platform used by more than 50 distilleries, bonded warehouses and co-packers across the UK, Ireland, the United States, Australia, Canada and South Africa.
Stuart Maxwell, chief operating officer at Proof 8, said: “There is a gap currently between how distilling is taught today, and how distilleries are actually run.
“A new way of thinking was coming through from graduates proficient in using technology from an early age, yet they were rarely taught about the actual systems distilleries were using, let alone had any practical skills in using them.
“In some cases, coming on site at a new employer, they were met with more traditional ways of doing things (spreadsheets, legacy systems, paper records) and could see the tools weren’t there that could make operations more efficient.
“That’s now changed with our new partnership with Heriot-Watt University that supports students the minute they start distilling courses.”
Matthew Pauley, ICBD, Heriot-Watt University assistant professor of Distilling explained: “Our students graduate into an industry that is digitising quickly, and our job is to prepare them for the distillery they will actually walk into.
“Having access to the Proof 8 platform means students have hands-on time with an operating system that distilleries and warehouses genuinely depend on today.”
