overview

Wayward Brewing Co. was started by Peter Phillip, a home brewer at heart who loves traveling. Wayward began as a gypsy brewery operating out of other local breweries. One of those breweries was where Peter met Shaun Blissett, who joined Wayward as the head brewer. By 2014, Wayward had grown enough to open their own production brewery and taproom in Camperdown, Australia, where they produced 125,000 litres in the first year. Since then, Wayward has grown to have 12 full-time staff and 16 fermenters and produce 1 million litres annually (8,500 bbl).

challenge

Before using Ekos brewery software, the team at Wayward was growing fast and needed a system to track everything. They found that using whiteboards for production was inefficient and inconvenient since employees needed to be standing in the brewery to see the plan, so they chose to begin using Ekos in 2016. On any given day, there are hundreds of moving parts to be organized and in place in order to run a brewery efficiently. “I don’t actually know how we would have grown to this size as efficiently without Ekos,” said Shaun.

results

For Shaun, the forecasting tool is the most vital part of Ekos because it shows what inventory levels will be for every item in the future. It helps him make sure he has everything in place for production to avoid any disruption. 

“We’ve got a new seasonal beer getting packaged next week, but I’ve noticed that I’m short 3,500 blank cans. I feel like I’ve got 8 pallets and that seems like enough, but I just saw a blip on the below-stock threshold for packaging of that beer based on our forecast sales in Ekos, so now I know that I need to order more. The ability to see that in a centralized place is really invaluable.”

Since implementing Ekos, the team at Wayward Brewing has one central place for all of their inventory, production, sales, and accounting, and it helps them run their fast-growing brewery more efficiently. As Shaun says, “I don’t think there are too many pieces of brewery management software that can come close to Ekos when it comes to usability, consistency, and knowing what you have and when you want to have it. We have saved ourselves weeks of time having Ekos … I still recommend Ekos as the best software that you can get.”

Take a tour to see how Ekos can help your business just like Wayward Brewing Co.