🧭 Context
At Gérard Bertrand, quality is a core value. Strong brands, renowned vintages, committed viticulture… mastering the product from harvest to bottling is a strategic priority.
Processes were already in place: audits, inspections, analyses, tastings, supplier monitoring, action plans… nothing was left to chance.
Over time, however, this maturity generated a high volume of documents, Excel files, paper forms, and manual updates. Everything worked, but overseeing it all became increasingly complex.
The Quality department, responsible for compliance, carried the weight of all processes: preparing, distributing, collecting, and following up.
The result:
- Sharing the right information quickly was difficult
- Getting a clear overview was tough
- The workload on the Quality team kept growing
With a second site opening, a key question arose: how to maintain the same level of quality without multiplying sheets, emails, delays, and re-entries?
It became essential to scale up without losing the Maison’s high standards.
❗Challenges
The challenge was not “introducing quality”—it was already deeply embedded. The real challenge was raising quality standards and accelerating improvement.
Documentation was rich but scattered across different tools, files, and paper. Teams often spent more time searching, copying, and consolidating than analyzing and making decisions.
The Quality department naturally became the hub where everything converged—a bottleneck. With a second site, this was no longer sustainable.
The goal was clear:
- Empower each site to manage its operational quality
- Maintain central oversight, clear governance, and full traceability
The question: How to preserve high standards while making the process lighter, more dynamic, and more fluid?
🛠️ Solution
The transformation happened in stages to support teams without disruption.
Phase 1 — Continuous improvement & quality audits
Foundations came first. Audits—packaging, hygiene, harvest, contractors—were integrated into Kostango.
No more multiple files, manual formatting, or copied tables. Audits are now:
- Conducted directly in the tool on-site
- Automatically consolidated
- Tracked with action plans visible to all
Each site can manage its own audits, while the Quality department maintains real-time, consolidated visibility. Dashboards make it easy to engage teams on the ground.
A true shift: quality becomes a collective responsibility.
Phase 2 — Supplier & sample tracking
Digitalization then extended to the essential raw material: wine.
Each supplier, tank, and sample analyzed or tasted is:
- Recorded
- Traced
- Stored and compared
You know where the wine comes from, how it evolves, and how it performs. You can review a batch months later with full historical context—a quality asset built over time.
Phase 3 — Production digitization
Finally, paper-based processes were replaced:
- Wine reception
- Tank launches
- Self-checks
- Bottling
- Shipping inspection
What changes?
- Checklists are completed during the process, not afterward
- Tracking is real-time, not “recorded later”
- Production becomes traceable without extra work
✅ Results
Benefits were immediate and visible across the organization:
- 2× more quality audits without added workload
- Measurable reduction in packaging quality issues
- 10 samples/day monitored, analyzed, and compared in a single system
- No more duplicate entries across sites, departments, and steps
- Each site actively manages its operational quality with overall coherence
- The Quality department regains oversight, focusing on management over data entry
High standards remain unchanged. Daily operations are now simpler, faster, and more efficient.
