"At Bacardi Limited, the world's largest privately held spirits company, barrel leakage is a massive headache. Consider the company's Dewar's blended Scotch whisky brand (just one of the dozens it owns). Most of the time, Dewar's will have over 100 warehouses full of aging barrels of whisky, 25,000 casks in each one. Barrels will mature for three to 12 years, and according to Angus Holmes, Bacardi's whisky category director, many of those barrels will develop a leak at some point in their life."
"Given the imperative to find so-called leakers before a decade has come and gone-and taken all the whisky with it-Bacardi engaged the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland. NMIS was presented with the problem, and came up with a surprising solution: Why not adopt a robotic dog? Andrew Hamilton, head of the Digital Process Manufacturing Centre for NMIS, says the group's first suggestion was that Dewar's might try a Boston Dynamics Spot robot which could roam the warehouse on the prowl for leaking barrels."
Wooden barrels cause significant whisky loss through liquid leaks and vapor evaporation during maturation. Bacardi’s Dewar's brand stores millions of casks across more than 100 warehouses, with many barrels developing leaks over three to twelve years. Liquid leaks are visible, but excessive evaporation is harder to detect. The National Manufacturing Institute Scotland proposed using a Boston Dynamics Spot robot to patrol warehouses for leakers. Effective detection requires a canine-like olfactory capability to sense whisky vapor trails. Automated vapor sensing could find leakers earlier, protect matured spirit volumes, and reduce financial loss from barrels that slowly lose whisky to evaporation.
Read at WIRED
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