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  • Production Scheduling

    I'm curious how most craft brewers handle their production scheduling when they have more beers to brew than they have fermentation tanks available?

    Seems like this forces them into brewing larger batch sizes and then having to inventory the finished beer and paying for the space, refrigeration, and having beer that is less than its freshest when it is finally distributed.

    Is there some "production scheduling" software that is commonly used throughout the industry ?


    Thanks in advance,

    Dan

  • #2
    There's no software that does scheduling that I'm aware of. Even if there were, it just can't account for that one time your witbier "hangs" for an extra 12 hours, putting your schedule at risk!


    That's what a good production manager is for...juggling your yeast strains, cellar, packaging, and brewing to be as efficient as possible at producing exactly what you need exactly when you need it. Not to mention making sure the truck is there, the keg caps are there, the kegs are clean, and the bottles are in the right part of the cooler...and the staff is happy. Usually you hire a top gun brewer, and he ends up doing all of that instead of actually brewing :-P

    I'd buy software that did all of that!

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    • #3
      There's some software out there that does this. (BeerRun and Orchestrated Beer, for example.) For our size (~1000bbls) it just didn't pencil out. Tried using Excel but updating it on the fly was a problem. (Lag in clarifying was a big one, also staff out sick, slow or fast ferments, shipping delays and screwups on ingredients, etc.)

      So we got a whiteboard calendar for like $20. What's coming up in the next 4-5 weeks, what needs to be done in which fermenter when, when beers need to move from A to B, "interruptions" like festivals and holidays, etc.. All written on there readily available and changeable. Easy peasy.

      It's the job of the Brewmaster (or production manager or whatever you call them, it has to be someone's job) to work with the sales staff, track what's selling at what rate, look at what's in which tanks/kegs and when, say "We'll have more of that in 10 days, go easy selling it for now but we should be ok." or "We have a ton of that taking up space, push it." or "There's no way to make more of that until next month, we'll run out in T-minus 3, 2, 1..." Then peer deeply into your magic brewer's crystal ball and see what you need to order now, to brew in two weeks on Thursday when Tank 4 is empty, in order to have beer on tap the 17th of next month, right as you run out of the last Seasonal...
      Russell Everett
      Co-Founder / Head Brewer
      Bainbridge Island Brewing
      Bainbridge Island, WA

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      • #4
        Orchestrated Beer does not actually schedule things. It will "suggest" a schedule, but the scheduling is entirely up to the people entering in the data. As a matter of fact, it is hard to actually see any graphical representation of the schedule, past a color coded calendar. Which is what you get if you use Google Calendar.

        Don't get me wrong, it's an excellent piece of software...but a scheduling tool it is not. The TTB calculation tool is very good, and the latest version with the expedite button makes recording variances much easier.

        A whiteboard works pretty well. You can even draw color coded hoses for the particularly obtuse people.

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        • #5
          Ah, then I guess BeerRun is better for that. (Don't use either, just looked at them.)

          Colored whiteboard pens are your friend. Each of my tanks gets a color and a line in the calendar, then I know what gets done where at a glance.
          Russell Everett
          Co-Founder / Head Brewer
          Bainbridge Island Brewing
          Bainbridge Island, WA

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