Award-winning and innovative beauty and cosmetics manufacturer Herrco, are focused on implementing efficiency rich solutions which will grow with them, find out why they selected Agility CMMS.
Herrco Cosmetics Ltd is a bespoke beauty and cosmetic manufacturer that develop organic based products. Established in 1988 the business has grown through outstanding product innovation and their product portfolio has won numerous awards.
Herrco products can be found in major high street retailers, chemists, pharmacies, boutiques & spas, all around the world, as well as contemporary online retailers. As a first in-class full-service beauty and cosmetics manufacturer, the team handle everything from the initial brief to sourcing ingredients and packaging, to production, filling, labelling, and distribution.
The complex full-service operation strives to be at the forefront of innovation and technological advancements when it comes to their products, and their operations. Focused on investing in capabilities, machinery and technology which can help to advance their business to be the very best, the team have implemented efficiency rich solutions which will grow with them.
In January 2021, the team approached SSG Insight having received a recommendation that they would benefit from having the Agility asset and maintenance management solution. Alasdair Cockburn, Systems Development Director stated:
We were looking to improve our current process which relied a lot on excel, checklists and schedules, much of which needed to be printed. We wanted to move to a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) which would support our engineers and remove the need for paper-based documents.
With it being a full-service manufacturer, Herrco Cosmetics is split across several sites within close proximity to each other, all of which focus on different areas such as production, packing, and storage. The entire operation involves numerous pieces of machinery and equipment which require a vast array of assets and parts to ensure business as usual and avoid any downtime.
Derek Herrmann leads the business having taken over from his parents who originally founded the company. Not only is he Managing Director but as a fully qualified cosmetic chemist, he heads up the technical team to ensure all formulations produced are of the highest quality. He shared:
“Once we have an approved formulation and it goes into production, we need to be as efficient as possible and ensure that we meet with the timescales required by our clients. As well as ensuring the product is of the highest quality, we also ensure our service is of the highest standard. We wanted a system that would help us to avoid downtime as far as possible, and a system that would support our team of engineers to make continuous improvements with our maintenance which is vital to our manufacturing.”
We selected Agility for several reasons. The SSG Insight team took the time to understand our business, from what we do to what we wanted to achieve with the asset and maintenance system, and where we want to go. They were able to demonstrate the flexibility and scalability of the Agility solution, showing us what it could do for us now in the way of preventive maintenance, schedules, critical parts, etc., and how it could grow with us into the future.
“In addition, once we have decided that we are doing something we tend to move quite quickly and the SSG Insight team were able to deliver our implementation within our desired timescales.”
The Herrco team decided to review all their asset and maintenance strategies and put together a rigorous 100-day plan to ensure they could act quickly. Having gone live within their desired timeframe, the Herrco team are starting to utilise and benefit from the Agility CMMS solution.
By the time Agility went live, they had updated and improved their:
• Asset maintenance management strategy
• Full list of parts and critical spares required
• Inventory of the parts and spares in stock
• Preventive Maintenance schedules for all machinery, equipment & parts
• Documentation including photos uploaded into the system
• Corrective maintenance for every possible part
• KPIs and monitors for asset lifecycle management
As Alasdair Cockburn explained:
“We have dedicated time to review everything and ensure that the data we are putting into Agility is correct across everything, from our strategy to our asset structure, stock checks, service contracts, and more. It has been a lot, but once we have decided we are doing something, we like to implement it quickly, and the team at SSG Insight have supported us to meet our deadline.
We onboarded the Herrco team from the early stages including our engineering manager, supervisor, our system expert, the engineers, and everyone is really excited about the potential that Agility has to bring to our maintenance operations. We have already made improvements in production and warehousing so it will be great to see our maintenance engineers moving forward too.
Agility is being viewed as a really positive change and it will help us to meet our KPIs which we have aligned to all maintenance requirements that have been identified. The Agility Dashboards will be a great way to help us to easily analyse all the data that the system is storing centrally for us, in addition to the day-to-day impact for the maintenance team and their workload.”
“We are a technologically advanced business and a Smart Factory, from our cosmetic product innovations to equipment like the sensors and cameras that we have in place, and our systems. With Agility we have a system that is future proofed and will advance with us. We are pleased that Agility has been implemented so quickly and within our timescale, and we cannot wait to see it supporting us to drive our business potential.”
Derek Herrmann concluded by sharing with us.
“We are pleased to have integrated Agility with our other business systems such as our purchasing system Winman. As all our engineers will be managing their own procurement, this link between the systems will make it easier for them and for Finance.”
Herrco Cosmetics are just at the start of their Agility asset and maintenance management journey, and we are looking forward to sharing more as they begin to use the Agility solution. Talk to one of our team about how Agility can support your organisation today, call one of our global offices or email enquiries@ssginsight.com
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