It’s the haunting question that keeps everyone awake at night: “What if…”

What if your new distillery or expansion project hits a major road bump? What if you fail an inspection, experience an equipment malfunction, or encounter a dissatisfied investor? Whatever the obstacle, in our experience across multiple industries, we’ve found that the best way to avoid those major obstacles (and sleep better at night) is to extensively develop your concept plan from the start.

Following Haskell’s Project Delivery Model, we recommend starting with clear project objectives. Whether you’re creating a new product, scaling production or launching a new location, it’s critical to not only establish your short- and long-term goals, but also define what success will look like for your project.

“There are a number of different values you can set as a top priority for your project,” says Anthony White, Haskell’s Division Leader for Beer, Wine and Spirits. “Is it the most cost-effective solution, the most aesthetically-pleasing solution or the highest quality product?”

Once your goals are defined, they can be broken down into a milestone schedule that will determine your timeline for completion. From securing financing to passing code inspections to producing your first product for the market, these milestones will keep you on course throughout the project, guiding your decisions, pacing your progress, and ensuring that each stakeholder in your organization (operations, marketing, investors, etc.) has bought in to the same set of expectations.

Next comes the technical details—critical to any distillery plan. Your engineering team should start with a basic block diagram outlining each major step in the production process, and then expand that to a Process Flow Diagram (PFD). The PFD will define your mass-energy balance and dictate important equipment and utility decisions. At this stage, a detailed code analysis is also helpful to prepare for facing municipal and federal regulations.

With the above components in hand, you can complete your planning process with a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM). The milestone schedule, PFD, and code analysis should provide the basis for a projected estimate within 30% of your actual costs so that you can decide how to acquire the necessary financing for your project.

It’s tempting to breeze through this planning process, but the more time you spend on each step, the more you’ll save time and money down the road. Plus, once you have a detailed plan in place, you’ll rest easier knowing that your distillery project is on solid footing. 

Haskell to Sponsor ACSA Safety Webinar Series

ACSA will be kicking off a FREE, ongoing webinar series on distillery safety in the coming weeks. The series, sponsored by Haskell, will focus on a different safety-related topic each month. Details on the inaugural safety webinar will be announced soon, so stay tuned!