FEATURE Industrial AI RESOLVING DOWNTIME ISSUES IN WHISKY DISTILLING RESOLVING DOWNTIME ISSUES IN WHISKY DISTILLING


IFS Nexus Black is working with Scottish distillers William Grant & Sons, deploying industrial AI to improve maintenance, reduce 


W


illiam Grant & Sons’ distillery, on the west coast of Scotland, has been perfecting household


names like Grant’s whisky and Hendrick’s   as they’d hoped.


Fragmented data meant technicians


were reacting to problems, not preventing them – 38% of repairs were for emergencies. This resulting downtime  The AI solution from Nexus Black plugs into the distillery’s existing systems and sensors – reading detailed plant schematics, and predicting which parts are likely to fail before they do. An AI overview of the whole plant’s operations helps cut batch loss and boost yield. For the engineer diagnosing a fault, they get a new tool: Resolve. The app doesn’t just read text, it captures elements of production using video to see how a part is moving strangely, audio to interpret a rattling pipe, and even registers changes in temperature and pressure. The AI analyses these inputs to detect patterns and identify faults before they lead to equipment failure.





from IFS’ collaboration with Anthropic. Nexus Black chose Anthropic because of its focus on safe and reliable AI, which is critical in industrial environments where  infrastructure.





stark realities facing technicians and  defence, construction & engineering, manufacturing, energy, utilities & natural


20 March 2026 | Automation


Resolve uses Claude to open up approaches that were not possible before, predicting and preventing what humans might miss: analysing thousands of equipment images,


resources and telecoms. These industries are straining under the


pressure of ageing infrastructure, lost expertise, and an increasingly unpredictable world that throws supply chains out of balance – all while facing a once in a generation increase in demands from re-industrialisation and AI infrastructure build out. “What we really like about Nexus Black was that they understood our industry – they weren’t trying to apply something generic. It’s been innovation that’s practical, fast and actually connected to results, not theory, “ said Badri Narasimhan, Chief technology & 


correlating sensor readings, and connecting patterns across visual inspections and operational data to catch problems before they become failures. Resolve can also connect the right technician with the right part with optimised scheduling, reduce paperwork, and collect actionable data through voice recognition and automatic transcription. Garvan Doyle, Applied AI Lead at Anthropic, said:


“Anthropic combines frontier AI capabilities with the safety and reliability that industries require. IFS has unquestionable expertise in the complex realities of the industrial world – they have proven they can activate and apply AI in capital intensive and asset heavy environments. Together, we’re deploying AI where stakes are highest.” The William Grant & Sons deployment is cited as a


real-world example of industrial AI moving beyond proof-of-concept into operational uses. It shows how AI can be embedded directly into maintenance  like food and beverage production. “We said, do something at scale – not just a proof of concept or an experiment that lives in isolation. And that’s what we’ve been able to do with Nexus Black. The pace at which we’ve gone from idea to something real has been fantastic,” said Narasimhan. For Nexus Black, the project demonstrates its model of co-developing AI solutions with customers  deploying generic software. William Grant & Sons estimates that Resolve will save them £8.4 million a year at this one site alone, once they’re in business-as-usual mode. That’s thanks  in output.


Narasimhan concluded: “We are proving that we can drive value by deploying AI with Nexus Black, and deploy it at speed, at scale.”


IFS www.ifs.com/en automationmagazine.co.uk


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