Halewood International: Maintaining a steady flow...

Halewood International may have sponsored the 2009 British Comedy Awards, but producing tens of millions of cases of ‘big brand’ beverages every year - including enough Crabbie’s all new ‘Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer’ to spice up the festive season - is no laughing matter. Yet with visionary entrepreneur John Halewood at the helm, and an operational focus on Lean TPM, the UK’s largest independent drinks manufacturing and distributing company is growing from strength to strength...

In 2009, the Halewood International distillery and bottling plant in Liverpool embarked on its 'lean journey', focussing initially on improving plant maintenance. The recently implemented Idhammar Maintenance Management System is being used to gain greater control of preventive maintenance, and is also being used to facilitate a number of TPM and continuous improvement initiatives including, 5S and Loss Prevention workshops for operators.

Making maintenance an management priority

The long-term gain of any systems’ installation is often dependent on a few critical success factors; these generally include full support from senior management, shop-floor buy-in, careful scoping of requirements, and the setting of realistic targets. All of these principles were well understood and demonstrated through the recent installation at Halewood. With a dedicated Steering Team in place to use and shape the system, this focussed and managed approach to plant maintenance is resulting in significant operational benefits for the 20-strong engineering team at the site.

To read the full story of how Idhammar's CMMS is maintaining a steady flow of work at Halewood International - download the case study.