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Case Irish Distillers & Pernod Ricard

Irish Distillers is the largest Irish whiskey producer, with significant year-on-year volume growth in both its domestic and international markets. Since 1988, it has been part of the Pernod Ricard group. Irish Distillers bottles several whiskey brands, of which Jameson is the largest and best known around the world.

Our solution

UC Group prepared a Strategic Road Map to increase on-site safety and also achieve significant capacity growth over the next ten years, including high-level timelines and investment budgets. The first phase of the project was completed in an intensive 12-week programme involving bi-weekly workshops with customer representatives and UC Group consultants.

After the Strategic Road Map and the design of the end-of-line production and warehouse layout had been delivered, a joint Irish Distillers and UC Group project team worked to roll out the plan. The roles taken on by UC Group included:

  • IT project management for MES implementation
  • Data analysis of annual volume growth figures so as to validate plans with updated reality
  • RFQ support for mechanisation supplier selection
  • Validation of selected solution for implementation, based on the Strategic Road Map philosophy
  • Analysis and advice on safety and flows of yard truck movements
  • Storage requirement analysis for further growth, based on volume growth figures

Results

  • Implementation plan, including ten-year planning and investments
  • No additional bottling plant required to achieve growth figures (investment of over €20 million)
  • Focus on improving and expanding an existing site within the organisation
  • Significant operational logistics cost savings (exceeding 15%) and performance increase (factory output will increase by a factor of 2.5)

Customer challenge

To what extent can we maximise our plant and warehouse output, with safety as the top priority? And what high-level programmes are needed to achieve this?

The customer was a WMS implementation to separate its ERP and warehouse activities but had no insight into the long-term impact of its considerable annual growth on its warehouse and production processes. It had even been considering the option of building an additional bottling plant. As part of the process of setting out the road map for the next ten years, UC Group was asked to advise on production and logistics processes, safety and business cases. This involved:

  • Strategic consultancy
  • Data analysis – change management and team alignment
  • IT project/implementation management – analysing and advising on on-site safety and transport flows
  • Consultancy on planning and forecasting for production and warehouse processes
  • Setting up a line change-over matrix and process capacity model for each activity

Throughout the process, the IDL team was involved and challenged in the next steps so as to make sure the local team fully supported the chosen solution. This involved a series of workshops (off-site), shop floor visits and in-depth data analysis.

During a very critical time the UC Group team delivered us a clear strategic vision for the future by combining engineering and pragmatic implementation skills in planning and IT project management. Thank you for your help and looking forward to your continued assistance.

Tommy Keane, Production Director, Irish Distillers