Baker Finsbury Food Group boosts asset management

The Mainsaver CMMS (computerised maintenance management system) has been supplied by Spidex Software and is designed to monitor and improve equipment maintenance and performance across its manufacturing operations.

Among its aims, Finsbury's Operating Brilliance project is designed to uniformly improve asset management across all its sites with standardised key performance indicators and reporting systems.

“We have grown significantly over the last decade through acquisition of strategic businesses, and it’s fair to say that each factory in the group is at a different stage in its journey to engineering excellence,”​ said Finsbury engineering manager Peter Saint. “There were a number of legacy CMMS systems in place at our various manufacturing sites and we identified a need to standardise across the business.​

“We assessed that Mainsaver was the system that closest matched our requirements,”​ said Saint. “It was already installed and working at one of our factories, and in Spidex, we knew we were choosing a supplier with a proven track record in the food industry.”​

Asset management objectives​

A project study was carried out by Spidex at each Finsbury plant to determine its position in respect to asset management and how this linked with the Operating Brilliance programme. A schedule of activity was agreed in each case to ensure Mainsaver CMMS supported the company’s overall asset management objectives.

Finsbury expects a number of benefits from the group-wide installation of Mainsaver CMMS, through implementing a maintenance management regime that will boost the performance of its asset base and through better visibility and control of its spares inventory.

Another vital benefit of the upgrade would be enhanced food safety, auditing and compliance. “As a food manufacturing business we need to ensure that all our maintenance work is logged, archived and thereby traceable,”​ said Saint. “Auditors and customers need to see that we are in control and that we record everything we do. Mainsaver will be key to this.”​

Spidex managing director Jonathan Starling said: “Operating Brilliance is a very important programme and we are proud that Finsbury Food Group has selected Mainsaver CMMS to support its asset management objectives.”​

Finsbury is a major cake, bread and bakery snacks supplier to the top grocery retailers.