FDBusiness.com

Major drinks manufacturer, Halewood International, is to launch a UK-wide quality management system using software from Ideagen. The producers of Crabbie’s, Lambrini and Red Square Vodka – among other brands – will adopt Ideagen Q-Pulse for the management of key operational documentation such as quality policies, specification information, consumer feedback and internal and external audits.

Q-Pulse will become the company’s single quality database ensuring Halewood’s sites, customer and consumers in the UK have access to a central area of communication and information. The UK-project could also extend across its global operations including Romania, South Africa, and China.

Neville Clifford, Halewood International’s Technical Manager, says Q-Pulse would bring an end to each site operating individual quality management systems. He comments: “Currently there is no single point of information for our products and other areas such as the general management of quality. Each of our sites are operating as individual businesses. The principal driver for this project is to have a single, central quality management system so that all of our staff and sites are working to correct policies and procedures. For example, if we decide to change the ingredients for one of our brands, it will be centrally controlled and communicated to ensure there are no deviations or areas of confusion. We require documents such as our quality policy to be freely and quickly available at all sites. Q-Pulse provides us with that set-up and gives us the chance to communicate to everybody within the business through one central and electronic portal.”

Halewood International’s corporate set up includes several manufacture, packaging and bottling plants. As well as its UK headquarters in Liverpool, it has five other sites across the UK and several globally including a manufacturing winery in Romania, bottling and fermenting plant in South Africa and contract pack operations in China and Myanmar.

As well as Crabbie’s, Lambrini and Red Square Vodka, Halewood’s other leading brands include JJ Whitley Gin, Pogues Whiskey, and Willow Water.

Neville adds: “Q-Pulse will be the system that will tie all of our UK sites together. It will become our central quality system where our staff will be able to share information across multiple sites. We are looking forward to seeing some real, operational benefits from using the system.”