How to Handle Your Drink - The Allied Distillers Way

Natural history of whisky

How does whisky get from the distillery into your glass? Starting in the distillery, the boiling, mashing and distilling of raw materials is largely driven by bulk processing equipment and vessels, mixing and transforming the ingredients to put them on the right path to becoming the liquid in your glass. Yet there are essential activities such as turning valves, maintaining equipment and performing manual handling which can present risks to operators, and the implications of a poorly designed work environment are the same as in any process industry - muscle strains and difficulty performing tasks.

The whisky is then poured into barrels, which must be moved to and from the confined environment of the warehouse racks where they stay for several years, ageing with the help of the surrounding wood and air, as so eloquently described on the label of your whisky bottle. Manually handling these wooden whisky barrels (of various sizes, some weighing half a ton!) requires a great deal of "knack" and skill, and although a veteran barrel handler can make it look easy, a naive person attempting the same task will probably struggle to move the load. Finally the contents are decanted, perhaps blended, and then bottled on a semi-automated line involving dozens of different tasks, from loading the empty bottles, to placing labels and caps, to handling full cases of the product onto pallets.

Ergonomics considerations

As you will now realise, some strenuous work has gone into your whisky, and failure to address the ergonomics and manual handling considerations for many of these situations can lead to injuries over time. A good example in managing ergonomics risks has been set for the industry by Allied Distillers Limited (ADL), producers of popular brands such as Laphroig, Miltonduff, and Ballentines. ADL have been clients of System Concepts for several years, commisioning our consultancy and training services to address their unique manual handling and ergonomics concerns. In particular they have trained dozens of manual handling risk assessors through our customised training, focusing on areas where the risks are greatest, such as handling casks in the warehouse racks. They have recently extended the training programme to cover tasks on the bottling line which are more likely to be of a repetitive nature, so that good workstation and task design are of prime importance. Making full use of the checklists contained within our ergonomics training, the ADL assessors quickly assess a task and identify any potential risk factors, carrying out more detailed analysis if necessary. Most importantly, they are able to develop solutions which reduce the risk, from simple modifications to the bottling line to more substantial engineering changes such as manual handling devices.

ADL's Safety Engineer says: "We are happy with the checklist based approach because it is consistent, and helps the assessor to identify problems they may have otherwise overlooked."

System Concepts has a strong record of providing ergonomics support to the food and drink industry, with clients as diverse as The Brewers' and Licensed Retailers Society, The Scotch Whisky Association, Cadbury, Mars, Carlsberg-Tetley, and Victoria Wine. Please contact us if you would like to know more about applying ergonomics to your operations.

For more information contact Ansgar Kupper.