WineWorks

Unified data
accelerates
growthWineWorks, a premier New Zealand wine bottling company, bottles up
to 65,000 cases a day. The company aimed to automate its processes toenhance the efficiency of its bottling lines and services.

Challenge

Solution

Outcomes

WineWorks’ operational data wasscattered across dif ferent systems.
The lack of central data management
not only made automation dif ficult
but a business risk if any bottling line
errors were not identified quickly.

In just six weeks, Fujitsu helped
WineWorks build the foundationsof an end-to-end infrastructurethat connects all data sources andcollects real-time data.

• Established an end-to-end data
infrastructure to accelerate growth•	Enabled real-time data collection toimprove ef ficiency and decision-making•	Built up capabilities and confidence ofIT team in data technologies“Fujitsu has helped accelerate our plan for a smart factory.
Instead of developing over several years, we will now
have many components of our plan in place in the next
few months.”Ernie Scherf, Group IT Manager, WineWorks

Siloed data from disparate systems
Since its inception in 1995, WineWorks has played a pivotal role in supporting theNew Zealand wine industry by providing essential bottling infrastructure and services.

7years saved in automatingbottling processes

For more than 29 years, the company has expanded alongside its winery clients,
ensuring ample capacity for bottling, labelling, storage, and distribution—all specialised
processes that demand expert handling and world-class quality standards.
WineWorks operates at a massive scale, bottling up to 65,000 cases a day across ninebottling lines in three plants. Each wine bottle must not only be pristinely produced,
but it must also meet numerous compliance standards such as the Brand Reputation
through Compliance Global Standard (BRCGS). As such, vast amounts of data areconstantly generated throughout the bottling process to meet client andcompliance needs.
However, this wealth of data was stored across various data platforms, leading toinef ficiencies that af fected business areas such as the planning of pricing strategies
and delayed error reporting from the bottling line. Fundamentally, the absence ofa unified data approach was impacting WineWorks’ ability to optimise its operations.
Ernie Scherf, Group IT Manager at WineWorks, explains the predicament, “We had somuch data and it was in quite disparate systems. We had numerous data procedures
and we had to deal with truckloads of business intelligence reports. Still, there werechunks of missing data.
“We wanted to bring together the data in a coherent way so we could better predict
how long a bottling run would take and increase our ef ficiency.”

A strong data foundation for automation
Recognising the need for a more integrated approach, WineWorks sought help fromFujitsu to develop a unified data platform to streamline data processing and enhance
decision-making.
Scherf says, “I was a little worried initially as we had not worked with the big datacompanies before.” However, he was assured that Fujitsu has worked with companiesof dif ferent sizes and would provide a bespoke solution tailored to WineWorks’ needs
and timeframe.
A Fujitsu senior solutions consultant started with a comprehensive assessment of
the existing data management practices to identify gaps and designed a long-term
roadmap for integration.
Then over six weeks, the Fujitsu consultant worked closely with the WineWorks IT teamto help them design an end-to-end data infrastructure that would address their needs.
The collaboration phase ensured the new system was tailored to WineWorks’ uniquerequirements and seamlessly integrated with their existing processes.
The data architecture they settled on consisted primarily of a lakehouse model built
on Databricks and Microsoft Azure cloud platforms. The lakehouse approach combines
the flexibility and cost-ef ficiency of data lakes for raw data storage with the structureddata management and SQL querying capabilities of traditional data warehouses.
This hybrid model allows WineWorks to store all its data in open formats, whilestill enabling high-performance analytics and business intelligence workloads.

Industry:

Manufacturing
Location:

New ZealandWebsite:wineworks.co.nz

About the customer
Since its inception in 1995, WineWorks has played a pivotal role in supporting
the New Zealand wine industry by providing essential bottling infrastructureand services. For more than 29 years, the company has expanded alongside
its winery clients, ensuring ample capacity for bottling, labelling, storage,and distribution—all specialised processes that demand expert handling.

Fujitsu also helped WineWorks implement key tools such as Databricks Unity
Catalog, a governance tool for managing data and AI assets securely and ef ficiently.
Unity Catalog provides centralised governance features that simplify the security
and management of data across various workspaces and cloud platforms.

5dif ferent data systems
consolidated into one

With the foundations of the new infrastructure in place, WineWorks could now
begin automating the workflows for raw data collection and data transformation toprocessed data. User access to the system was also made secure and simpler withsingle sign-on implementation.

Accelerating growth with greater ef ficiencies
With a consolidated data platform, the company can now begin to collect and analyse
data more ef ficiently, supporting better decision-making and strengthening the qualityof its service.
“When we complete the integration process in the coming months, we expect to beable to automate more of the bottling process,” says Scherf. Real-time data monitoring
and automation will minimise downtime and improve production accuracy, potentiallyreducing costs and enhancing output quality.
“For example, when a bottling line stops running, we will be able to get real-time
notifications instead of having somebody go down to the bottling line to find out
what went wrong,” says Scherf. “This will free up our staf f to focus more on thequality component of their job, such as making sure the bottles are labelled andcapped properly.”
Scherf originally had a seven-year plan to automate WineWorks’ bottling lines andintegrate them into a ‘smart factory’. The partnership with Fujitsu has accelerated
this timeline significantly.
“Instead of seven years, we will now have a majority of the components of my plan inplace in the next few months,” he says.
Beyond the technological advancements, Scherf felt that working with Fujitsu has
benefited WineWorks in a much deeper way.
On Fujitsu’s commitment to knowledge transfer, Scherf says, “The Fujitsu sales andsolutions teams made sure that our IT team learned as much as they could from them.
Fujitsu’s desire to help build up our team capabilities through collaborative training
and consultation proved to be a game changer for us.

Customer:“Fujitsu did a very good job of explaining the why and the how of what we needed to do,teaching us the industry’s best practices in the process. I am also truly impressed withhow our IT team has grown and gained the confidence to use this technology with thehelp of Fujitsu.”
With the lakehouse data platform, WineWorks is well set up to realise its plan of
becoming a ‘smart factory’.

Fujitsuenquire@fujitsu.com
Tel: +64 4 495 0700

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July 2024