The Ferrara Candy Company, a related company of The Ferrero Group, is a company of acquisitions. They have grown from a small candy manufacturing company to a large, international candy and snack brand. Before merging, each brand and company was managed with its own set of tools and complex organizational structures. They needed a centralized platform to manage their production assets. Their needs were met with the implementation of Maximo. Many companies who have been part of mergers and acquisitions understand the struggle of standardizing processes across the new organization while leveraging the unique skills of each.
CHALLENGES
EAM Standardization & Best Practices
To successfully merge each brand and company into the Ferrara family, a common Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) program was essential. This would allow them to share their maintenance knowledge within the group and merge the techniques and best practices learned by each organization. Ferrara conducted an assessment of the various tools in use by each organization, and selected Maximo as the clear winner for EAM functionality, and Maven as their business partner to provide the best fit for agility, flexibility, and depth of EAM capabilities.
Spare Parts Availability
Some plants managed their spare parts inventory well, while others struggled to find parts when needed. By establishing storerooms in Maximo, conducting an initial inventory and clearly labeling spare parts, it became much easier for stock keepers to identify and issue the correct parts when needed. By managing inventory balances and the reorder process in Maximo, Ferrara was able to ensure they maintained optimized inventory balances on hand – enough for maintenance needs, but not to excess.
Purchasing Power
By managing their spare parts needs, Ferrara gained purchasing power. All plants now follow the same streamlined, efficient process for purchasing spare parts and maintenance services. This process allows each individual plant to act with agility while providing visibility and accountability throughout the organization. With a simplified process of finding and maintaining the Ferrara inventory, their purchasing power increased throughout the different companies and leveraged their buying power. The ease of finding inventory reduced the cost of external purchases and enabled them to cut downtime.
INSIGHTS
Easy to Use • Agile & Flexible • Collaborative • Centralized EAM • Purchasing Integration • Inventory Optimization • Standardization • Empowering • Remote Training
SOLUTION
Maven successfully merged multiple organizations to a common enterprise platform remotely. We kept things simple for Ferrara, so they could stay focused on their core business. Standardizing everything made finding inventory easier and reduced the cost of external purchases. Ferrara can now successfully look within their sister companies inventory when needed to reduce costs and downtime. Maximo was exactly what Ferrara Candy Company needed.
