While touring distilleries in Kentucky, I discovered the distillation of bourbon uses only one tool, a drill to break open the barrel at the end of the aging process. The drill needs to be pneumatic because the removal of spirits from barrels needs to happen in an explosion proof room due to the flammability of the barrels and spirits. The drill requirements depend on the volume of spirits produced by the distillery; large production necessitates a robust, automated setup while a low-volume distillery doesn't utilize the tool enough to invest in an automated system.
However, there currently isn't a drill on the market optimized for this process. Small distilleries tend to use an off-the-shelf pneumatic drill which doesn't take into account the user's experience.
The opportunity for such a solution exists in the market.
Heaven Hill Distillery | New Riff Distillery
All pneumatic drills I saw in distilleries were Ingersoll Rand or made with Ingersoll Rand parts. If Ingersoll Rand were to optimize a drill for barrels, the brand recognition and trust of users would make the move to the new model easy.
A quick brand language exercise pointed me to some key repeated design elements in the drill language.
Sketch studies allowed me to explore trigger placement and alternate trigger options, purposeful placement of second hand, and a more intentional guard.
Models helped clarify matters of scale, comfort and hand positioning.
The final model speaks to current Ingersoll Rand branding.
It mostly uses parts already used in Ingersoll Rand pneumatic drills. The 5 new parts for the barrel drill are the Safety Trigger, Trigger Unit, Housing Assembly, Guard and Bung Bit.
The user is better able to complete the task with significantly less strain.
