The management of bulk spirit stocks, from distillation, through the long maturation process, to bottling, represents the biggest single challenge for whisky producers.

The raw spirit must mature for a minimum of three years before it is can be called whisky. But much longer maturation is common; many single malts stay in cask for upwards of 12 years - and holding such vast quantities of inventory for this length of time is a major source of cost for producers. As leading whisky writer Michael Jackson says: “Malt whisky destined for brands is usually matured for at least five or six years. If it is to be bottled as a single malt, it may not reach the market for 15 years or more. Even with the best market intelligence, it is impossible to predict demand that far ahead. There is always too little whisky or too much.” Jackson cites the example of the early 1980s, when a consistent excess of whisky resulted in the closure of many fine distilleries.

Maturing whisky results in losses. Not only is there the famous ‘angels’ share’ - the proportion of spirit that is lost to evaporation during each year of the maturation process - but also losses are incurred during the blending process. And with the strict control over alcohol imposed by HM Customs & Excise (C&E), these losses (typically up to two per cent per year is allowable for the angels’ share, although four per cent is more common in the spirit’s first year) have to be accounted for.

So whisky producers need tools to help them manage their inventory. But that’s far from the whole story. A typical blended whisky (and blends represent more than 80 per cent of Scotch whisky production) might contain more than 30 individual whiskies, of varying age and origin. Most of these will have been produced, and probably aged too, by companies other than the one creating the blend; there is a massive inter-distillery trade in different whiskies for blending purposes.

The TROPOS Bulk Whisky Workbench from SSI can help distillers and blenders dramatically improve their efficiency in:

• optimising blends - including on-line blend creation and optimization, (based on cost, quality, lead times, wood policy and cork warehouse picking logic) across multiple locations, and the automated provision of age of youngest spirit (AYS) information through the blending process. The rules-based tool calculates the quantity of alcohol in each ingredient, and supports standard Scotch Whisky Association classifications such as First Class Highland Malt.
• producing Customs & Excise (C&E) documentation - at the touch of a button, including W1 returns and W8 warehouse dispatch warrant. The Workbench includes fully integrated electronic thermal alcohol correction tables and stores VAT calibration data on-line, thus helping whisky producers to reduce the amount of time they have to spend providing documentation to, and negotiating with, C&E.
• tracking and controlling the automatic billing of warehouse rents - all whisky companies hold reciprocal stocks, and the Workbench generates automated invoices for these stocks. The Workbench supports SAP9, enabling costing calculations to be automated.
• the management of casks - controlling the movement of casks and parcels, as well as wood management and filling (including automatic alcohol content calculations from density and temperature recordings).

Because the Workbench is part of SSI’s TROPOS ERP package, it offers class-leading traceability functionality - from the receiving vats at the distillery, through warehouse maturation, vatting, bottling and dispatch to the customer.