L2M – Craft Brewery Innovation Project

Craft breweries depend heavily on their brewmasters to forecast demand and plan production, which distracts them from their core focus: brewing good quality beer. It also puts significant pressure on breweries because if the brewmaster suddenly becomes unavailable, they would be incapable of effectively completing these tasks. Forecasting and production planning become increasingly difficult as breweries grow operations, necessitating a better, tailored solution for craft brewery production planning automation and standardization.

We provide a platform that helps breweries become self-sufficient and facilitate their production and operational growth. In a user-friendly web application, brewers can generate seasonal, monthly and weekly demand and sales forecasts to better prepare their production, ensuring sufficient inventory levels and appropriate scheduling to meet demand. The application also automatically generates production schedules, ensuring demand is met efficiently. This enhances the brewery’s forecasting and scheduling process by providing greater confidence in accuracy, removing much of the reliance on a single individual to complete the process, and gives brewers more time to do what they do best – making great quality and delicious beer. The tools on the application are facilitated by a combination of machine learning, analytic and optimization-based algorithms to perform forecasting and scheduling. This project enables resource-scarce breweries to adopt advanced forecasting and scheduling technology without requiring deep technical expertise, reducing reliance on manual planning.

We are performing a case study with a craft brewery in Nova Scotia for testing and refining our prototype, and we aim to develop at least two more industry partnerships through this program. We are nearing completion of a prototype and will soon begin testing, using real brewery data to validate our approach and refine key performance criteria. Through this program, we seek guidance in positioning and selling our platform to breweries, strengthening industry relationships, and gathering feedback to further enhance our product.

Faculty Supervisor:

John Blake

Student:

Partner:

Springboard Atlantic Inc.

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Technology; Advanced Manufacturing; Other

University:

Dalhousie University

Program: