Drink-IT ERP Success Story: Robinsons Brewery

• Robinsons owns almost 400 pubs stretching from the Lake District, across to mid-Wales and over to Derbyshire. Robinsons brews its own beer, as well as provide contract services for brewing, bottling, kegging and cask racking

Reaping the Benefits of Modernised Operations

Robinsons traditionally used different software systems to support various elements of their business, including separate products for telesales, operations and accounts. When the support for their operations system stopped, they decided to modernise their operations and chose Drink-IT, a modern, flexible og standardized solution based on best practises for the brewery industry.

With Drink-IT, Robinsons benefits from an end-to-end retail solution which supports every aspect of the business, from EPOS and EFT to warehousing and distribution. “We are reaping knock-on benefits by having more clarity of our operation," says Simon Burchill.

Simon Burchill, Business Systems Manager, Robinsons Brewery

"With Drink-IT we are reaping knock-on benefits. Drink-IT stood out and really made a difference compared to other solutions."

Harnessing the Business for the Future

“Flexibility was vital for Robinsons,” states Burchill and continues: “Drink-IT is a seamless beverage business software solution that gives us a solid, yet extremely flexible foundation that enables us to move our business forward in the direction we want to go. In short, we’ve got a highly flexible business software solution to built our future on. Drink-IT is a platform for the company to go on to bigger and better achievements."

Robinsons approached the Drink-IT project on the fundamental premise that they wanted the installation to be as close to off-the-shelf as possible – “and we certainly succeded in getting that,” Simon Burchill explains. “Drink-IT makes it easy to scan every item in and out, which enables us to know exactly what’s in stock, in real time.”

A key measure of success is user acceptance, and with Drink-IT being very intuitive and easy to use, the staff at Robinsons soon able to get the most out of the system.

Simon Burchill, Business Systems Manager, Robinsons Brewery

“Drink-IT has automated processes that have never been automated before in our brewery. The functions make life easier and eliminate manual routines, enabling our employees to focus on more value creating tasks.”

Robinsons’ Drink-IT solution replaces a number of disparate systems, including stock control and accounting including sales order processing, invoicing and purchasing, plus rents and loans management and transport load planning. These functionalities were implemented in the first phase.

In the second phase, Robinsons implemented Drink-IT functionality that helps the architects manage their databases and project costings. Furthermore, the purchase order processing (POP) module was implemented with integration to invoicing.

In the third phase, Robinsons implemented an interface for stock control to a new RFID and barcode scanning system to replace the costly manual process for stock counting and inventory control.

Lastly, Robinsons added a full operational version of POP, along with document scanning facilities, cashier and private ledger functionality.

Robinsons’ Drink-IT solution was implemented by The NAV People, a partner in the Drink-IT partner network.