Case Study: Buffalo Trace Distillery
Case Highlights
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“In 15 minutes, we can go from contemplating a new quality check to having it created, in place, and ready to roll.” — Tony Roberts, Quality Manager 
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AuditMatic ChallengeBuffalo Trace Distillery, Whiskey Magazine’s 2007 Distillery of the Year, distills some of the most-acclaimed, highest-quality bourbons in the world. Like every distillery, Buffalo Trace is required to routinely collect and store regulatory and quality compliance data. Buffalo Trace had always used paper-forms for this. However, every time a new form was completed, the data from the form had to be manually entered into a spreadsheet for data-analysis purposes. After several years, there were many paper-form stuffed boxes and large, slow spreadsheet files to manage. Buffalo Trace needed a record-keeping solution that allowed them to remain compliant and minimize their management strain.
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AuditMatic ResultsRegular product quality data collection and analysis is of great importance to a world-class distillery like Buffalo Trace. Buffalo Trace’s quality manager, Tony Roberts, recognized that AuditMatic would be a great solution for gathering their quality control data. How right Roberts was. Upon implementation of AuditMatic, their first usage of AuditMatic was for quality checks on their bottling lines. Now, all Buffalo Trace's quality-based inspections are conducted using AuditMatic with PDAs and smartphones. “The best thing about using AuditMatic for line checks is that it forces standardization on the inspection process and the entered data at the same time,” said Tony Roberts, Quality Manager at Buffalo Trace. “And, you don’t have to wait for the data. It’s fast and the data is always accurate.” Roberts didn’t stop at bottling line checks. He quickly realized that AuditMatic would work equally as well in their quality laboratory. Consequently, Buffalo Trace shelved their plan to purchase an expensive laboratory management system and uses AuditMatic for all their lab data collection and analysis needs. “By using AuditMatic in our lab, we saved a significant sum of money by not having to buy a lab management system,” Roberts noted. “If I need to pull up the results of a sample, it’s fast and easy to do so,” he added. Roberts believes that AuditMatic’s adaptability is made possible by its ease of use and speed. “In 15 minutes, we can go from contemplating a new quality check to having it created, in place, and ready to roll. I can’t say enough about how easy it is to use.” Roberts said. “When we were first implementing AuditMatic, we expected it to take a few months to get rolling. But, it only took a few weeks, and it was doing more than we had planned,” he added. AuditMatic easily met Buffalo Trace Distillery’s original challenge by providing a robust solution to their record keeping that eliminated cumbersome boxes waiting for review. Additionally, and just as importantly, AuditMatic has given Buffalo Trace a central repository for quality data that’s simple to manage, fast to implement, and easy to adapt to multiple applications. |
