Unique Project for Large Distillery

This project was designed to provide the operators with an interface to control the machines within their work areas. It also follows workflows to provide real-time monitoring of the recipes in production in grain operations, mashing, fermentation, distillation, processing, and finished goods. The company believes this is the first implementation of Ignition on this scale in any US distillery.  

Ignition provides a smooth and integrated means of controlling inventory and production and of maintaining logs. This system can control all aspects of production and most of Bardstown’s record keeping. By providing a single system under which all aspects of production and inventory can be maintained and historized, Bardstown has the ability to quickly analyze production issues and effect meaningful change, fueled by its ability to monitor key production indicators. 

Before Ignition, most record-keeping was done by hand with printed logs or Excel spreadsheets. As this project moves forward, Bardstown intends to add AI and machine learning algorithms to the system. By mapping taste profiles with an HPLC, the company will be able to understand the production models which are most advantageous to the taste profiles it wants to produce. By matching production and distillation data with specific taste profiles, Bardstown will gain a greater understanding of how to more precociously produce distillate to create the world’s finest bourbons and whiskeys.  

Ignition has made everyone’s lives easier at Bardstown. The amount of time spent on fixing minor production issues has dramatically decreased because of the ability to view historized process data. The user interfaces are intuitive and easy to master, allowing operators more time to understand the processes and provide important feedback regarding the controls process. The need to log data by hand has been nearly eliminated.