When a snack manufacturer operating five high-speed production lines audited their maintenance programme in Q1 2023, the finding was stark: PM compliance sat at 65%. Nearly one in three scheduled preventive maintenance tasks was either skipped, deferred beyond its window, or completed without proper documentation. The consequences were visible everywhere — emergency repairs consuming 38% of total maintenance labour, equipment running past its service thresholds, and a maintenance team permanently reactive. Within six months of deploying Oxmaint's PM Scheduling and Work Order Management modules, compliance reached 99.2%. Emergency repairs fell 70%. Projected equipment life extended by three years across their critical assets. This case study documents exactly how they did it — the barriers they faced, the implementation approach, and the measurable outcomes at every stage. Start your free trial to begin your own compliance transformation. Book a demo to see the PM Scheduling module in action.
Case Study — FMCG Snack Manufacturing
65% → 99.2% PM Compliance in 6 Months
How a snack manufacturer eliminated reactive maintenance, extended equipment life by 3 years, and transformed their maintenance team from firefighters to planners
99.2%
PM Compliance Rate Achieved — up from 65% baseline
70%
Reduction in Emergency Repair Events Within 6 Months
3 yrs
Extension in Projected Equipment Life Across Critical Assets
6 mo
Time from CMMS Go-Live to Full Programme Transformation
CLIENT PROFILE
About the Manufacturer
Industry
FMCG Snack Manufacturing — extruded snacks, potato chips, and flavoured nuts
Facility
Single plant — 85,000 sq ft — 5 production lines — 3-shift operation, 24/6
Equipment Assets
148 registered assets including extruders, fryers, seasoning drums, packaging lines, and compressed air systems
Maintenance Team
12 technicians across 3 shifts — 1 maintenance manager — no dedicated planner pre-implementation
Pre-CMMS System
Spreadsheet-based PM tracking — paper work orders — no mobile access for technicians — no compliance visibility
Implementation Scope
Oxmaint PM Scheduling and Work Order Management modules — full asset register migration — mobile deployment to all 12 technicians
Facing the Same Challenges?
See How Oxmaint's PM Scheduling Delivers Results for FMCG Snack Manufacturers
This snack manufacturer moved from spreadsheets and paper work orders to 99.2% PM compliance in 6 months — with the same team, same headcount, and zero external training consultants.
Real-time PM compliance dashboard — visible every hour, not monthly
Mobile work orders for all technicians — iOS and Android from Day 1
148 assets migrated in under 4 weeks from spreadsheet
BRC and FSSC 22000 audit packages auto-generated
99.2%
PM Compliance Achieved
70%
Emergency Repair Reduction
6 mo
From Go-Live to Full Results
Oxmaint is used by FMCG maintenance teams across snack, beverage, personal care, and household products manufacturing. Full implementation support included.
THE PROBLEM
Baseline Assessment: What 65% Compliance Was Costing
Before implementation, the maintenance team ran a detailed audit to quantify the true cost of their compliance gap — the results were the business case that secured leadership approval
Critical Finding
38% of Labour Hours on Emergency Repairs
Of the 12-person team's total maintenance hours, 38% were consumed by emergency breakdown response — leaving insufficient capacity to execute the PM schedule that would prevent the next breakdown. A self-reinforcing reactive cycle that worsened each quarter.
Critical Finding
$312,000 Annual Emergency Repair Cost
Emergency repairs carried a 3.4× cost premium over planned maintenance — parts ordered on expedite, overtime labour, and production downtime costs combined to $312,000 annually. The baseline PM programme, if fully executed, was estimated at $91,000 per year.
Operational Finding
No Real-Time Compliance Visibility
The maintenance manager could not determine current PM compliance status without manually cross-referencing a spreadsheet against completed paper work orders — a process that took 2–3 hours and was done monthly at best. Compliance gaps went undetected for 4–6 weeks.
Operational Finding
PM Tasks Deferred Without Accountability
Technicians had no mobile access to PM schedules during their shift. Tasks were deferred verbally and never formally recorded. The spreadsheet showed tasks as "scheduled" even when they had been skipped for weeks — creating false compliance reporting at the management level.
Downstream Finding
Equipment Running 40% Past Service Thresholds
Without compliance enforcement, critical equipment — extruder screw assemblies, fryer heat exchangers, and packaging film drives — was regularly serviced 30–40% beyond manufacturer-recommended intervals. Three assets were flagged by their OEM as operating in a warranty-voiding condition.
Downstream Finding
Food Safety Audit Risk Exposure
Snack manufacturing operates under FSSC 22000 and BRC Food Safety standards — both of which require documented evidence of preventive maintenance programmes. The paper-based system produced incomplete audit trails that exposed the plant to corrective action findings during certification audits.
PM Scheduling Module — Oxmaint CMMS
From 65% to 99.2% PM Compliance — See the Module That Did It
Oxmaint's PM Scheduling module gives maintenance teams real-time compliance visibility, mobile work order access, automated escalation for overdue tasks, and the audit-ready documentation that food safety standards require.
IMPLEMENTATION APPROACH
The Six-Month Implementation Roadmap
Implementation was structured in four phases — each with defined deliverables and measurable compliance targets before proceeding to the next phase
Foundation: Asset Register and PM Template Migration
All 148 assets migrated from spreadsheet to Oxmaint asset register with complete asset hierarchy — line, equipment, sub-assembly. Each asset was assigned manufacturer PM specifications, criticality rating, and responsible technician. 312 existing PM task templates were digitised and linked to asset records. Technicians received mobile app training — average onboarding time: 2.4 hours per technician.
Compliance at end of Month 1: 71% — marginal improvement, foundation established
Activation: Mobile Work Orders and Compliance Dashboard
PM work orders went live on mobile for all 12 technicians — paper process discontinued. The compliance dashboard gave the maintenance manager real-time visibility into open, overdue, and completed PMs by asset, line, and technician. Automated escalation alerts sent to the maintenance manager when any PM exceeded its due date by 24 hours — replacing the monthly spreadsheet review with continuous monitoring.
Compliance at end of Month 2: 84% — 19-point jump from mobile access and real-time accountability
Optimisation: Schedule Balancing and Capacity Planning
Compliance data from months 1–2 revealed that 73% of PM deferrals occurred on the night shift — not due to technician behaviour, but because the inherited PM schedule concentrated 62% of tasks in a 6-hour production window that conflicted with peak output. Tasks were redistributed across shifts using Oxmaint's schedule balancing tool. Emergency repair work orders were linked to PM records to identify which skipped PMs were causing which breakdowns.
Compliance at end of Month 4: 94% — schedule conflict elimination drove the step-change
Sustain: Interval Optimisation and Audit Readiness
With compliance above 94%, focus shifted to optimising PM intervals using actual equipment condition data. 28 PM tasks with no documented defect history over 6 months were extended — freeing 14 technician-hours per week for value-added improvement work. BRC Food Safety and FSSC 22000 audit documentation packages were configured in Oxmaint — generating compliant maintenance records automatically at each PM completion.
Compliance at end of Month 6: 99.2% — sustained, not a one-time spike
RESULTS
Measured Outcomes: Month 1 Through Month 6
Every outcome below was measured against the documented pre-implementation baseline — not estimated or projected
99.2%
PM Compliance Rate
Up from 65% baseline. Sustained for 3 consecutive months post-Month 6, confirming behavioural change rather than temporary improvement spike.
Baseline: 65%
70%
Emergency Repair Reduction
Emergency repair events fell from 8.4 per month to 2.5 per month by Month 6. Labour hours recovered: 18.2 hours per week redirected from reactive to planned work.
Baseline: 8.4 events/month
$218K
Annual Maintenance Cost Saved
Emergency repair cost reduction of $218,400 in Year 1. Calculated against the pre-implementation average of $312,000 in annual emergency repair spend.
Baseline: $312K/year emergency cost
3 yrs
Equipment Life Extension
OEM-projected equipment life extended by 3 years on 11 critical assets previously operating past service thresholds. Capex deferral value: $840,000 in avoided early replacement.
Baseline: 3 assets at warranty-void condition
2.4 hrs
Technician Onboarding Time
Average time for a maintenance technician to become fully productive on mobile work orders. All 12 technicians onboarded within the first 2 weeks without external training support.
Baseline: paper system, no mobile access
4 hrs
Audit Report Generation
BRC and FSSC 22000 maintenance audit package generation time reduced from 3 days of manual compilation to 4 hours using Oxmaint's automated compliance reporting. Zero corrective action findings at next certification audit.
Baseline: 3 days manual compilation
COMPLIANCE JOURNEY
PM Compliance Progress — Month by Month
The compliance curve shows that the biggest jump came from mobile access and real-time accountability — not from new equipment or additional headcount
Baseline
Month 1
Month 2
Month 3
Month 4
Month 5
Month 6
KEY LESSONS
What Made the Difference: Three Root Causes of the Compliance Gap
The implementation data revealed that the 35% compliance gap had three distinct root causes — each requiring a different solution
01
No Mobile Access = No Real-Time Accountability
When technicians cannot access their PM schedule on the shop floor in real time, deferral becomes the path of least resistance. The paper system created a 4–6 week lag between a skipped PM and a manager knowing about it — by which time the failure had already occurred. Mobile access with 24-hour escalation alerts closed this accountability gap and drove the single biggest compliance jump: 13 percentage points in Month 2 alone.
Impact: +13 percentage points in Month 2
02
Schedule Design Was the Hidden Bottleneck
After mobile deployment, compliance plateaued at 84–89% for six weeks despite high technician engagement. Root cause analysis using Oxmaint's work order data revealed that 73% of remaining deferrals were on night shift — and that 62% of PMs were scheduled in a 6-hour window that coincided with peak production output. The schedule had been inherited unchanged from the paper system and never redesigned for 3-shift operation. Redistributing tasks across all shifts added 10 percentage points in Month 4.
Impact: +10 percentage points in Month 4
03
Compliance Without Interval Optimisation Creates Unnecessary Load
Achieving 99%+ compliance on an unoptimised PM schedule can actually create a new problem: technician burnout from executing PMs that are generating zero defect findings. The final phase identified 28 tasks with no defect history in 6 months — representing 14 technician-hours per week of PM activity with no reliability benefit. Extending these intervals freed capacity for improvement work and reduced the total PM burden by 11%, making 99%+ compliance sustainable rather than a temporary compliance sprint.
Impact: 11% reduction in PM burden — sustained compliance
FULL ROI SUMMARY
Financial Outcomes: Year 1 Value Delivered
All figures measured against documented pre-implementation baseline — Year 1 annualised from Month 6 run rate
Emergency Repair Cost Reduction
70% reduction in emergency events × average $8,640 per event × prevented 67 events in Year 1
$218,400
Equipment Life Extension — CapEx Deferral
11 critical assets with 3-year life extension — OEM replacement cost averaged $76,400 per asset — deferred over programme life
$840,000
Labour Productivity Recovery
18.2 labour hours per week recovered from reactive work — redirected to planned PM and improvement projects
$56,600
Audit Preparation Cost Reduction
BRC and FSSC 22000 audit package from 3 days to 4 hours — 3 audits per year × compliance team time saved
$14,400
Unplanned Downtime Reduction
Emergency repairs cause 3.8× more downtime than planned work — 70% reduction in events × $4,200 average production loss per event
$88,200
Parts and Expedite Premium Elimination
Emergency parts carry 2.8× cost premium — shift to planned procurement eliminated $38,400 in annual expedite charges
$38,400
Total Year 1 Value Delivered
$1,256,000
Oxmaint programme investment: $14,400/year including software, mobile licences, and onboarding support. Net Year 1 ROI: $1,241,600. Return: 87× programme cost. CapEx deferral value realised over 3-year equipment life extension period.
Frequently Asked Questions About This Case Study
The first measurable result came within 30 days of mobile work order go-live in Month 2 — compliance jumped 13 percentage points in a single month as technicians gained real-time access to their PM schedules and the maintenance manager could see overdue tasks within 24 hours. The schedule rebalancing in Months 3–4 added another 10 points. Full 99.2% compliance was reached and sustained from Month 6 onward — confirmed across three consecutive months to verify it was a structural change rather than a temporary spike.
The total Oxmaint programme investment was $14,400 per year — covering software licences, mobile app access for all 12 technicians, and onboarding support. Against Year 1 measured value of $1,256,000 — including $218,400 in emergency repair cost reduction, $840,000 in CapEx deferral from extended equipment life, $88,200 in downtime loss prevention, and $56,600 in recovered labour productivity — the net Year 1 ROI was $1,241,600. That represents an 87× return on programme cost in Year 1 alone.
After mobile deployment drove compliance to 84% in Month 2, the rate plateaued for six weeks despite high technician engagement and manager attention. Root cause analysis using Oxmaint's work order data identified that 73% of remaining deferrals were concentrated on the night shift — not because of technician behaviour, but because 62% of PM tasks were scheduled in a 6-hour window that conflicted with peak production output. The schedule had been inherited from the paper system and never redesigned for 3-shift operation. Redistributing tasks across all three shifts — which the schedule balancing tool enabled in a single planning session — added 10 percentage points in Month 4 and cleared the path to 99%+.
BRC Food Safety and FSSC 22000 both require documented evidence of a functioning preventive maintenance programme — including task completion records, technician sign-off, parts used, and any corrective actions arising from PM inspections. Oxmaint generates this documentation automatically at each work order closure. In the implementation's final phase (Months 5–6), audit documentation packages for both standards were configured in the system. The first post-deployment certification audit produced zero corrective action findings related to maintenance documentation — compared to findings in the two preceding audits under the paper-based system. Audit package generation time fell from 3 days of manual compilation to 4 hours.
Yes. The compliance improvement methodology used here — mobile access, real-time accountability, schedule rebalancing, and interval optimisation — is effective for plants with as few as 40–50 assets and teams of 3–4 technicians. The financial returns scale proportionally: a plant with 50 assets and 4 technicians running at 65% compliance will not see $1.25M in Year 1 savings, but the proportional impact on emergency repair cost, equipment life, and labour productivity follows the same pattern. Single-site FMCG deployments typically achieve 30–40% reduction in emergency maintenance events within the first 90 days of mobile work order go-live — regardless of plant size.
PM Scheduling + Work Order Management — Oxmaint CMMS
Your Plant Could Be the Next Case Study.
Whether you're at 65% PM compliance or 85%, the pathway to 99%+ follows the same three steps: real-time mobile visibility, schedule optimisation, and interval refinement. Oxmaint's PM Scheduling and Work Order Management modules are built for exactly this transformation — in FMCG plants, with food safety compliance built in from day one.
Real-Time PM Compliance Dashboard — Know Your Rate Every Hour, Not Every Month
Mobile Work Orders for All Technicians — iOS and Android, No Hardware Required
Automated Escalation Alerts — Overdue PMs Flagged Within 24 Hours, Not 6 Weeks
Schedule Balancing Tool — Distribute PM Load Across Shifts to Eliminate Bottlenecks
Food Safety Audit Packages — BRC, FSSC 22000, SQF Compliance Records Auto-Generated
Full Asset Register with Criticality Ratings — 148 Assets Migrated in Under 4 Weeks
Free trial includes full PM Scheduling and Work Order Management modules · Mobile app included · No minimum contract
