In 2007, Peta and Brennan Fielding founded Burleigh Brewing Co. on the Gold Coast of Australia, which offered the perfect vibe for their laid-back, slow-brewed beers. The Queensland-based brewery embarked on a mission to redefine the Australian brewing scene with mainstream German-style lagers. With their flagship no-carb lager, Burleigh Bighead, they captured health-conscious beer enthusiasts' hearts (and taste buds) nationwide.

As the brewery’s most popular product, Bighead was Australia’s original no-carb lager and the only no-carb lager on the Australian beer market at the time. This beer was a game-changer for Burleigh, as it tapped into consumers' growing demand for healthier, low-calorie drinks, driving most of the brewery’s growth for the past decade.

With great success came significant challenges, and Burleigh's journey was not without its hurdles. As demand for their brews soared, operational challenges emerged, threatening to impede Burleigh's growth trajectory. Decision-making bottlenecks, fragmented systems and a lack of visibility into their supply chain were just a few of the obstacles they faced.

Building Brewery Success Amidst Operational Challenges

Scott Lyall, Burleigh’s chief operating officer, shared that at one point they were using three different small systems to power their operations: one for stock, one for general ledger and a third for CRM. “It was a hodgepodge of systems that didn’t talk to each other, and at no point could you see the end-to-end supply chain easily,” he recalled. 

The lack of visibility meant the founders were too in the weeds with the day-to-day decision-making, eating into time better spent on strategy, innovation and expansion. Not to mention the effect on morale by not enabling employees to do their jobs effectively and timely.

“With growth, it was necessary to implement a fully integrated ERP system,” said Lyall. To overcome these obstacles and sustain their upward momentum, Burleigh searched for a comprehensive Australian brewery software to streamline operations and empower the team to make informed decisions. That’s when it found Crafted ERP, a cloud-based brewery ERP explicitly designed for breweries by those who know the industry. 

“Crafted is a user-friendly product that has a lot of capabilities that can be leveraged by all levels of the business. It’s positioned well in terms of ease of use versus the cost of maintaining a specific team for a business of our size. We don’t have a massive IT team behind the scenes,” stated Lyall.

Liberating Leadership, Driving Growth

With Crafted implemented and fully integrated, the Fieldings soon realized the benefits. They began handing over the reins of day-to-day decisions to help move along production and other projects. Gone were the days of waiting for approval from the top brass. With Crafted, every team member was positioned to take charge, driving projects forward with confidence and autonomy. Lyall sums it up best: "Crafted ERP has empowered people to do their roles and not just be order-takers."

Leadership was liberated and able to step out of the tactics to dig into strategy, evaluate opportunities and prepare and plan for a CAPEX project. And, just in time, too, because COVID-19 arrived – along with a major influx of business for the brewery. 

The pandemic disruption propelled Burleigh and its Bighead no-carb lager to new heights amid the trend in customers to make more health-conscious lifestyle choices. At the heart of it, Burleigh kept up with sky-rocketing demand due to capabilities in Crafted that enable the brewery to ship products as they came off the packaging line. “Outside of the first few years of the brewery, our production during the pandemic was probably the biggest growth curve we’ve had,” explained Lyall.

Insights that Streamline Success

Burleigh managed to keep all the balls in the air while improving efficiency and productivity with enhanced supply chain management and demand planning. Live data and insights provided by the brewery software optimized production schedules, inventory levels and procurement strategies.

 “I primarily use Crafted for production scheduling, so I’m looking end-to-end to see where we are now,” explained Lyall. “Our procurement team determines what it means if we have beer in the tanks that needs to be packaged in a few weeks. Equally, I use it for financial reporting – where are sales sitting, what do our margins look like, direct costs and overhead.”

Configurable dashboards and out-of-the-box, industry-specific reports have been incredibly beneficial for the Burleigh team. “The amount of data and reporting we can get out of it is limited only by us and how we want to go about using it…we’re really only scratching the surface of what I know it can do for us,” said Lyall.

A Brew-tiful Partnership

The brewery found success amidst the pandemic, capitalizing on the popularity of Bighead’s appeal to health-conscious consumers. Since then, it has launched two new lagers and a lower-ABV version of the beer to cater to broader audiences.

Liberating leadership from operational constraints propelled the brewery into this new era of expansion and market prominence. “It would have been overwhelming had we got to the size we are today, but still had just two primary decision-makers. We probably wouldn’t have made it this far,” said Lyall.

With Crafted, Burleigh is poised to continue its upward trajectory. “Crafted is a fantastic tool for enabling the continued growth of the business,” Lyall shared.

Powering a Bountiful Future for Australian Beer

Australian breweries, take note from Burleigh. Choosing the right brewery software, and technology partner, will better prepare you to meet challenges head on. Crafted ERP Brewery Edition maximizes productivity and profitability, all while planning for the unknown.

Accelerating your potential, Crafted creates efficiencies and automates processes for accounting, procurement, sales, production, inventory and more. Keen to learn more? Contact our team of brewery specialists in Australia today.