Market leader for tea standardizes its maintenance management with the Enterprise Asset Management solution from IFS Ultimo / Additional sites to be connected
Innovation is a tradition at TEEKANNE GmbH & Co. KG: For more than 140 years, the company has been known for inventions such as the tea bag packing machine and double chamber bags, for the highest product quality, and for always introducing new flavors of its teas. Today, the market leader with over 1,300 employees and an international sales network has production sites and branches in seven countries worldwide. In addition to further developing its tea products, the company’s focus is on even more innovative and efficient production processes. As part of this, the company has introduced IFS Ultimo, an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solution that digitally combines all data on the maintenance effort and repairs of its machines. It also enables mobile working directly at the machines. This has improved transparency and efficiency during maintenance and increased equipment availability.
Mobile maintenance management part of the digitization strategy
“Paperless production is part of the digitalization strategy of TEEKANNE,” says Malte Poschmann, Head of Environmental & Production Systems at TEEKANNE. “IFS Ultimo makes our maintenance management mobile and accessible from anywhere. This means the EAM system is an essential building block for implementing digital and paperless production administration.”
The system was originally introduced back in 2018, initially installed on the company’s own servers and linked to inventory management in SAP. The previously existing Excel-based solution was completely replaced by IFS Ultimo, which immediately proved its worth. So much so that the move to the Azure cloud and the update to the latest version have now taken place.
Access to maintenance tasks and documents anytime and anywhere
Malte Poschmann, who is responsible for the introduction and use of the software: “With the latest version of IFS Ultimo, our employees now work with tablets directly at the machines and have access to maintenance tasks and documents anytime and anywhere. The intuitive software simplifies execution and logging. At the same time, IFS Ultimo gives us a valuable overview of the performance and maintenance effort of our equipment.”
Need for an audit-proof system
To meet the high requirements for obtaining IFS certification in food production, maintenance tasks and repairs must be documented in an audit-proof manner. IFS Ultimo meets all the necessary criteria for such an audit-proof system. The work performed can be recorded easily, safely and on the go directly at the equipment. Employees are supported by checklists and processes, and accurate data on downtime and repair times is recorded. In this way, maintenance intervals can be optimized and planned to further improve equipment availability. In addition, workplace safety is increased by firmly planning and logging the regular performance of safety-related maintenance.
TEEKANNE is absolutely convinced of the benefits and success of the IFS Ultimo EAM solution and has already implemented the software at another site. The rollout is also planned at other locations.
IFS Ultimo offers cloud-based Enterprise Asset Management with numerous modules that map processes from asset management to work orders and projects to maintenance management and HSE (health, safety, environment) issues, simplifying their execution and documentation. All data is centrally available in the cloud and can be used on any PC or mobile device thanks to corresponding apps for Android and iOS.
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