Beca and Lion have moved its Lion's White Rabbit Brewery from Healesville, north east of Melbourne to Lion's Little Creatures site in Geelong, some 144 kms away.
In 2014, Lion engaged Beca to assist with a review of their craft brewery footprint in Victoria. Beca worked with Lion to complete an initial feasibility and options analysis for the White Rabbit Brewery operation.
This was conducted to determine the most cost and time effective relocation approach. The relocation would allow Lion to create a consolidated hub for craft brewing operations in Victoria; the site also has the capacity for future development.
Following this, Beca was subsequently engaged at the start of 2015 to design and project manage the relocation. The first project stage involved bringing a 2000m2 1920's building on the Geelong site up to current standards to accommodate the relocated brewery and a new hospitality venue. In parallel to the building works at the Geelong site, Beca also managed the decommissioning and finalisation of the Healesville site.
The existing equipment from the Healesville site was relocated and integrated with additional new equipment at the Geelong site. The refurbishment of the improved system was then fully commissioned. The first brew of White Rabbit using the recommissioned equipment was successfully achieved in early October 2015 and the project was delivered on time, on budget and with no LTI/MTIs.
"Beca provided excellent end to end project management support and this greatly assisted delivery of the project to schedule and within our budget. This was particularly pleasing given the nature of the building refurbishment at Geelong and the tight timelines required, which ensured the start-up of the brewery prior to our peak production period," said Matthew Anderson, Lion's Operations Director Craft, Supply Chain.