COMMON PITFAL
LS TO AVOID
Working with distillery equipment, th ere are a few common area s where people often encounte r obstacles that you will w ant to avoid. Your budget fo r any piece of equipment sh ould include no t only the purcha se price and installation co sts, but also spare part cost s, freight, taxe s, and—if your ve ndor is overse as —import dutie s. Failing to account for th ese items will certainly have negative impa cts on your budget and timeline. “If your manuf acturer is quot ing you times for completion and not includ ing shipping, there’s a pote ntial for a huge impact to your schedule particularly if you are dealin g with internatio nal shipments ,” says Ryan. “If you haven’t considered th at and you ha ve a tight timelin e for installatio n and startup, yo u could wind up facing som e really costly options to get your equipmen t on-site in tim e or face dela ys.”
On the flip side , there are some opportun ities to save money in the procurement and design planni ng phases whi le also improvin g factory safe ty . Knowing the po tential hazard s of your equipm ent, as well as the municip al restrictions , fire codes, elec trical area classifications for hazardous areas, and resp onsible practic e guidelines from organizations like the Distil led Spirits Council durin g the design planning and equipment procurement stages, will he lp you minimize safety risks with cost effe ctive decision s. “Because alco hol is a flammable su bstance, you need to make sure all of your equipment is rated for the hazards it will encounter,” sa ys Ryan. “If you don’t specify th at up front with your manufac tu re r it can be very costly down the road. You also want to evaluate your design layout to see if movin g electrical
componentry away from your hazardous area s when feasib le can reduce or eliminate thes e classification requirements.” One last, but very key area to consider w hen choosing your equipmen t, is scalability . If you have lo ng term plans to expand prod uction, you need to take in to account the space requ irements for adding more eq uipment. “It’s critical to understand your current an d future production ne eds so that you can proper ly size your equipment or make sure it’s scaleable for expansion,” says Ryan. “W e’ve seen folk s design buildin gs sized for today’s needs and inevitably they start to ex pand and find themselves co nstrained by physical size and capacitie s of existing utilitie s that no long er match their de mand. You definitely wan t to make sure you’ve laid ou t your equipm ent smartly to antic ipate growth.”
Anthony White leads the Beer, Wine & Spirits division at Haskell which is dedicated to engineering and installing world-class manufacturing systems and facilities for clients in the Beer, Wine & Spirits Markets. Anthony graduated from the University of Florida’s Hough Graduate School of Business with a Master of Business Administration and from the University of Florida with a Bachelors in Construction Management, and is a Certified General Contractor.
CLOSING IN ON THE STARTUP e. You’re so clos it? el Can you fe your KPI’s You’ve hit all timeline and milestone ow targets, you kn and s your flow rate lumes, production vo l the you’ve met al and e federal, stat s, your municipal code ve been stakeholders ha e project bought into th pment and your equi is on the way. created In short, you ed the ut a plan, exec it’s plan and now strate time to demon r the completion. Fo r ou conclusion of ver some series, we’ll co ils you additional deta when need to know pment executing equi d firing installation an tion line up your produc e. for the first tim
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