3: Production Setup - Vessels, Maintenance and Quality Control
3: Production Setup - Vessels, Maintenance and Quality Control.
Before using the Production functions in BrewMan, you will need to configure your Settings.
Vessel Types are used to categorise groups of Vessels. For example, we would group together our holding tanks, stills and fermenters into their own Vessel Types.
Go to Administration > Settings > Production > Vessels Types.
Click Add New in the bottom right, enter the Name of the Vessel Type and click Save. Repeat until all types have been added.
Maintenance Processes
*It is key to note that if you are using new production, this will now be found in the production menu under Maintenance Recipes.*
Before adding your Vessels, you will need to add Maintenance Processes as they are a required step when entering a new Vessel. These allow you to record what types of cleaning and inspections you perform to maintain your Vessels and produce a record of them. This is primarily for health and safety or food standard audits such as Salsa Plus or HAACP.
Go to Administration > Settings > Production > Maintenance Processes.
Click Add New in the bottom right. Then enter the following information:
*Name - Enter an easily identifiable name for the Maintenance Process.
Description - Enter a description of the process, both for staff to carry out the task and for any auditor when reviewing your records.
Equipment and Protective Kit Required - List any kit you need to complete the Maintenance Process. e.g. a respiratory mask.
Ability Required - Enter any abilities you may require to complete the Maintenance Process. For example, you may need certain specialist training.
Click Save and continue to add more by clicking Add New.
Vessels
Once Maintenance Processes and Vessel Types have been added, you can add your Vessels into the system.
Go to Administration > Settings > Production > Vessels.
Click Add New and fill in these details:
*Name - Enter what you call the vessel. e.g. Holding tank 2.
*Vessel Type - Select the Vessel Type from the dropdown menu.
*Location - Select which Stock location that the Vessel is in from the dropdown. This might be particularly important for calculating Duty if the location is Bonded or Non-Bonded.
**Volume in Litres - ** Enter in the maximum volume capacity of the Vessel. BrewMan will then not let you exceed this limit in the Production process.
*Colour - Enter in a colour for the Vessel Summary screen. A defined colour scheme may make it easier to visually understand the processes in progress.
Maintenance Schedule
*Process - Select the Maintenance Process that applies to the Vessel.
*Due Every - Enter how often the maintenance is required in either Days or number of Uses so that the system can flag that the process is due.
Click Add and repeat for multiple Processes against one Vessel.
Click Save and your Vessels will form a list. On this list, you can use the 6 dot buttons to drag and reorder your list of Vessels. This will impact the order in which they appear on the Vessel Summary Screen.
Quality Control Tests
Create your own tests to be measured during Production such as ABV, Temperature or pH.
Go Administration > Settings > Production > Quality Control Tests and click Add New QC Test.
*Name - Enter the name of the Quality Control Test e.g. Fermentation Test. Please note one 'Test' can have multiple Metrics so a fermentation test could require pH, Gravity and temperature to be recorded.
Then select if this test can be used for Batches from a Recipe such as when making beer or gin or whether it can be used for Packaging from an Assembly such as when bottling vodka or racking a cask of ale.
Click add New Metric:
Metric Name - Enter a metric you want to record, such as temperature.
Notes - Enter any notes for when recording this Metric.
Unit Suffix - Enter the measurement symbol. E.g. °C or %.
Show Graph - Tick if you would like the results displayed in a graph.
Max Decimal Places - Enter the maximum number of decimal places you will allow someone to enter in a reading.
Min Value - Enter in the smallest value. For example, for pH it would be zero.
Max Value - Enter the largest value for the test. For example for pH it would be 14.
Click Save and your Quality Control Test will form a table. Once in the table click the 3 dots button under the Actions column to edit or delete a test.
Vessel States
Vessel states are used as a visual aid to show the specific state that a vessel is currently in.
Click Add New in the bottom right corner and give the state a Name, Icon, Colour and Description.
Vessel Summary Settings
Summary Title - This is referring to how the liquid in the vessel is kept. E.g. using the batch number will change the title to be the Batch Number.
Field - To change these click on the Tick or Cross and toggle to be Yes or No. These will be turned on or off as to whether the information should be included on the Vessel Preview/Vessel Summary Screen.
Now proceed to 4: Production Setup - Recipes & Packagings for the next steps.
- 1: Company Setup
- 2: Configuring Settings
- 3: Production Settings - Vessels, Maintenance and Quality Control
- 4: Production Setup - Recipes & Packagings
- 5: Importing Data
- 6: Adding Stock Levels
- 7: Set Up Integrations
- 8: Setting up Distribution
- 9: Container Tracking - Creating Containers
- 10: CRM, Task & Leads Settings
The guide assumes that you are importing your data in bulk. To add individual new items or for more detail on all the relevant fields, please see the guides below: