Thatchers Cider Company has made leaps and bounds in its management of raw goods by integrating its weighbridge with Dynamics NAV, says Ian Dorling, the company’s Head of IT. “In the past the seasonal process of weighing and paying for the apples which are pressed to make Thatcher’s delicious cider was completely manual,” he explains. “We rely on our own farm as well as external growers to provide us with huge heaps of apples every year and in return we commit to pay our suppliers in a 7-day period – a pretty quick turnaround! “What started out, back in the day, as a manageable process became more and more tricky as the business grew dramatically over the years; more and more errors were occurring, there was a fair amount of duplication of effort and the process as a whole was inefficient and time-consuming. Something needed to be done so last year we decided to automate the process and integrate it fully with our NAV solution. We worked with The NAV People to develop a solution which has already had a very positive impact on our business.” Dorling continues; “Now, what happens is that the supplier vehicle will turn up, it will be weighed in and out, but instead of it being two transactions it is now one transaction; two halves that are joined together. It is all automated which has removed a lot of the inefficiencies we previously saw and it has ensured that we will be able to easily scale-up the process as we have more weighbridges added to the business and as we purchase more and more apples to meet the growing market for our cider!” 42 BREWING & BEVERAGE INDUSTRIES BUSINESS thenavpeople.com/uk/ For more information visit: It’s full steam ahead for Thatchers thanks to its automated weighbridge! Showcase IT & BUSINESS SYSTEMS St Austell Brewery has chosen Drink-IT to address the constant changes and challenges within the brewing industry and to support its continued long-term growth. St Austell Brewery is on a growth journey, and recognised that its current infrastructure and operational processes need to be reinvented to support its growing, dynamic business. The company knew that intelligent adoption and use of technology was key. In choosing Drink-IT it allows St Austell to meet its increasingly intensive information demands whilst streamlining business processes and increasing business efficiency. Removing obstacles for growth, St Austell Brewery went for a solution that can help it handle continued growth in sales as well as being able to manage a developing, increasing supply chain. By choosing Drink-IT, it has ensured the scalability it needs to pursue current and future growth targets, and support business processes through the entire organisation. Like many other breweries, St Austell has struggled with a lack of automated business processes and wanted to be a more efficient brewery. With Drink-IT, it will benefit from improved automation of its processes, which will in turn help the company to improve and increase its productivity. Effective management reporting was another important issue for St Austell. By choosing Drink-IT, the brewery will more easily be able to capture and analyse data providing the business insights it needs to take better, more informed, faster decisions. Furthermore, St Austell Brewery needed a solution to help it manage the complexity and growth of its wholesale business. Drink-IT provided the answer with its rich and extensive functionality for tax, duty and other legal requirements. St Austell Brewery expects to achieve the following benefits from its new Drink-IT solution: • Increased employee satisfaction through empowering and equipping employees to do their jobs in a more fulfilling and rewarding way. • Increased productivity and effectiveness. • Improved systems that will track and ensure compliance whether legal, financial or ethical. • Improved data access to allow real-time management information and reporting. • A single integrated data model for all information required to operate “a single version of the truth”, with no data duplication. • A complete integration of financial data with all areas of business operations. The comprehensive Drink-IT project has started and is split into 4 phases with planned go-lives over the next two years. The solution is being hosted in the cloud by NORRIQ to make implementation and maintenance easier for St Austell Brewery. Major UK brewery chooses Drink-IT to drive growth and improve efficiency www.drink-it.com For more information visit: 42_Layout 1 12/11/2017 18:56 Page 1