Finding the right solution – and why that is harder than it sounds

Knowing what to automate is only half the challenge. The other half is finding the right supplier, at the right price, with a solution that actually fits. And for many manufacturers, that process is far less structured than it should be.

Often it follows a familiar pattern: search online, contact a handful of suppliers, have some informal conversations, and go with whoever seems most credible at the right price. Without a structured approach, it can easily lead to poorly specified solutions, costs that are never properly benchmarked, and installations that come with unwelcome surprises after the fact.

International Beverage understood the risks of that approach. As Alan put it plainly: "We'd just go to some palletiser suppliers and go for the cheapest option."

The team had limited internal engineering resources for capital projects of this kind, and had yet to create a structured procurement process to draw on. Ross O'Neill, Head of Site Operations, was candid about where they stood: "Project design in the past has been challenging – not just in the technical aspects of engineering, but also in how to run a proper tendering process."

What they needed was someone to bring the structure, the supplier relationships, and the engineering knowledge – so they could focus on running their operation.

From idea to signed order in 5 months – with a 32% cost reduction

HowToRobot's platform became the single workflow for the entire project. Working from the specification built during the site visit, the project was published to HowToRobot's global supplier network – drawing in five suppliers who came back with budgetary quotes. Four submitted firm quotes. Three were taken to a final round, including site visits at the facility. Every quote, comparison, decision, and piece of supplier feedback was captured in one place – creating the kind of auditable trail that gave IB's finance team and senior management the confidence to approve the investment.

The process also did something informal procurement struggles to achieve: it created genuine price competition. When five suppliers first responded with budgetary quotes, the spread between the highest and lowest submission was 75% – a sign of how differently suppliers had interpreted the brief before the specification was finalized. 

As the process progressed through structured rounds of Q&A, feedback, and specification refinement, those gaps closed. By the final round, three technically equivalent solutions had converged to within 5% of each other, with the winning supplier reducing their price by 32% from their first submission to their final bid. The whole journey – from scoping to signed purchase order – took just five months.

"HowToRobot took a huge weight off my shoulders," said Ross O'Neill. "Not just the time saved, but the depth we were able to go into the design. I fully expect it has saved us from reactive costs post-implementation."

Redeploying 4 operators and boosting throughput by 10%

With the system under delivery, International Beverage expects the automated palletiser to enable 4 FTEs to redeploy from the heaviest manual task on the line, taking on higher-value work and supporting the increased volume the company is targeting. The solution is designed to deliver around a 10% throughput increase – removing one of the key constraints that had been capping the line – along with a 15 to 20% improvement in pallet and truck utilisation, a benefit the team had not even put in the original business case.

For Ross and the operations team, the project also left something lasting: a procurement approach that has become a template for how International Beverage looks to handle capital projects. "My boss doesn't need to ask me questions about selection criteria," said Ross. "He's got the peace of mind that it's built into the HowToRobot process."

What comes next

The palletiser was always intended as a first step – and it passed the test. "HowToRobot gave us access to a wider range of suppliers, put structure around how we dealt with them, and delivered a far more professional procurement process than we would have run ourselves," said Alan Mitchell. "That gave us the confidence to engage them on a much bigger project."

International Beverage and HowToRobot are now working together on sourcing equipment for a full new filling line at the Airdrie facility – a project that could fundamentally expand IB's in-house bottling capability and take its production to an entirely new scale.