The Opportunity

Creature Comforts Brewing recognized that in order to scale, they needed to modernize. Processes relying on pen, paper and spreadsheets were creating duplicate data, fostering inaccuracy and preventing full visibility into their operation.

The Solution

Together, Stable Kernel and Creature Comforts strategized, designed, architected and built a custom industrial IoT ecosystem to help keep their beer-making equipment on the manufacturing floor running smoothly and transmit the data they need to keep their business successful.

Background

Creature Comforts, a fast-growing, award-winning regional brewery with a national presence based in Athens, GA., knows how to make top-quality craft beer and they are good at it (just ask any Stable Kernel team member). While we love their beer, we also admire their commitment to our local Atlanta community, and we were excited to learn more about their technology need.

Manual processes and data inaccuracies are common in brewery operations – and in manufacturing as a whole. Creature Comforts Brewing recognized that in order to scale, they needed to modernize. Processes relying on pen, paper and spreadsheets were preventing full visibility into their operation and creating production inefficiencies.  They identified the need for a system that natively integrated with their IoT monitoring system, displayed live and accurate data, and improved their operational efficiency and customer experience.

Process

  • UX/UI Research and Design
  • Progressive Web Application
  • Backend Development

Starting with understanding the breadth of the problem, we conducted client interviews and toured the facilities to get a better understanding of the processes and environment of the end user.

By gathering mountains of data through spreadsheets and hosting an IA workshop, we identified and organized key data points.

The client was present every step of the way as we worked through wireframes, lo-fi and hi-fi designs until we arrived at a working prototype that could be shared with the brewmasters and end users.

Through piloting the app with real employee users at the brewery, we built a backlog to make smart improvements over time.

We decided on a progressive web application for Creature Comforts, because the application would allow their employees the flexibility to access the application when they needed it.

Because this was an internal solution designed to improve operational efficiency, we knew this would be the most cost-effective approach.

In order to fully integrate their IoT ecosystem, we built the cloud infrastructure to bring the robust and rich data in one central location.

By integrating with their IoT ecosystem, we were able to build a dashboard that reported live, accurate data. 

We also gave employees access to historical data capabilities, giving them 360 degree analytics. Now, every data point that comes in is powering their reporting dashboard and future development.

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