The Operations Podcast with Fexingo · 2026-07-06 · 6 min
Episode 96 of The Operations Podcast dives into the operational mastery behind Japanese whisky. Lucas and Luna examine how the Yamazaki distillery in Kyoto reduced its water consumption by 75 percent while maintaining product quality. The episode breaks down the specific techniques: closed-loop cooling systems, real-time pH monitoring, and a kaizen-driven culture that treats every drop of water as a resource. They also discuss how Suntory, the parent company, applied these principles across its other distilleries and even into its soft drink bottling plants. Listeners learn one concrete operational metric - water-to-whisky ratio - and how it dropped from 15:1 to 3.5:1. The conversation touches on the broader business case for water stewardship in manufacturing, including regulatory pressure in Japan and cost savings from reduced wastewater treatment. A natural donation appeal ties the distillery's continuous improvement ethos to the podcast's ad-free model.
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