Brulines launches EDIS Smart Door
When Brulines launched its Electronic Draught Information System (EDIS) five years ago it was viewed with suspicion by licensees.
It was Big Brother, the spy in the cellar - not entirely unfair descriptions as EDIS was, indeed, originally designed for a policing role, nabbing publicans and barstaff who were giving away pints to their mates or pocketing the cash paid for beer.
However, with the launch of EDIS Smart Door, the third generation of the system, Brulines is hoping to put its sinister reputation behind it.
"We introduced EDIS because of the £1bn a year of fraud that was in the pub business," said managing director Derrick Collin. "Now we see it as more of an information provider, and hopefully the licensee will see the benefits."
Billed as "closing the EPoS loop", Smart Door not only monitors dispense of draught beers by the half-pint, it can produce daily and weekly stock reports, enables operators to match products dispensed with till receipts or EPoS data and monitor line cleaning reducing costs.
A touch-screen in the cellar gives licensees immediate access to up-to-the-minute information and reports can also be printed out on site.
"They can identify straight away in which bar a discrepancy occurred and drill down to the exact minute the problem happened," said Collin.
But he also emphasised the positive role of EDIS Smart Door as a sales information tool.
"If a tenanted estate is running a price promotion on a brand, for instance, it allows you to track the success of the activity," he said. "It can tell you when your quiet spells are, whether television campaigns are having and effect and what kind of pub they are most successful in."
EDIS machine can now also be installed with an "intelligent sensor" which acts as a quality check on the beer, detecting whether it is being dispensed at the wrong temperature, for example.
Another new piece of kit is the EDIS probe, an "intelligent pen" which can be dipped into the first beer drawn off following a line clean and inicate by a series of coloured lights whether the liquid is pure beer or contains water or cleaning fluid.
Collin promised the device can save half the average three-and-a-half pints of beer wasted after cleaning the lines.
