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Florette Reduces Engineering Downtime by 79% and Transforms Maintenance Management With Agility CMMS Background Florette, part of the Agrial Fresh group, is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of fresh salad products. Operating from its site in Wigan, the business processes and packs lettuce and salad products for some of the UK’s biggest retailers and restaurant chains. The facility is the base of operations for a busy engineering and maintenance team that’s responsible for keeping production lines running efficiently in a fast-paced, highvolume manufacturing environment. Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, has been with the business for nearly six years and has led the site’s use of Agility’s Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) since its implementation in late 2020. With over 25 years’ experience in maintenance planning and engineering management across multiple industries, Scott has worked with a range of maintenance systems throughout his career and has a clear view of what good looks like.
Industry
Fresh produce processing and packaging.
Product
Aptean EAM Agility EAM/CMMS
Challenges » Outdated, paper-based maintenance system with no centralised visibility of jobs, engineers, or costs » Maintenance requests managed informally by phone or by physically finding an engineer— no accountability or prioritisation » No way to accurately track machine costs, planned maintenance compliance, or downtime data
Benefits » 79% reduction in total engineering downtime minutes from 2022 to 2025 » 73% reduction in major breakdown jobs (over one hour) from 2022 to 2025 » Data-backed reporting to protect engineering headcount and demonstrate team value to the wider business
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The Solution Before Agility, maintenance at the Wigan site was managed through a combination of paper records, spreadsheets, and informal communication. Job requests were made by phone or by physically locating an engineer on the shop floor—a “system” that provided no visibility, no accountability, and no way to prioritise work effectively. Stock was recorded on a separate spreadsheet, disconnected from any maintenance record. The decision to implement Agility CMMS was driven by the need to bring everything together in one place: job requests, planned maintenance, stock, engineer activity, and machine cost data. The business wanted to go paperless, gain real-time visibility, and move from a reactive maintenance culture to a genuinely preventive one.
“We had a very poor maintenance system, a very old, outdated, paper system. Everything is now in one place: all the stock, all the planned maintenance, all the requests. We know exactly where engineers are at all times, what jobs they’re working on, and how much each job costs.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
The Wigan site went live with Agility in late 2020. One of the most significant cultural shifts since implementation has been the adoption of the solution as the single source of truth for all maintenance activity. With the full backing of management, a clear commitment was made from the outset: If a job isn’t in Agility, it doesn’t get done. Engineers now log every job directly through the system, including time spent in meetings.
“Getting the backing from our management team was the big thing. They told 300 people, ‘If you don’t put it on Agility, we won’t do it.’ And they actually listened.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
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Job requests from across the site are managed through the Agility helpdesk, with structured triage questions ensuring jobs are categorised correctly and routed appropriately. Emergency jobs (flagged as required within the hour) bypass the planning queue entirely and go straight to an engineer. Less urgent requests are queued and prioritised by Scott, who reviews incoming work and plans each shift’s workload accordingly. The triage process has also addressed a recurring issue with machine damage. By introducing fault codes for different damage types, Scott was able to bring data into management meetings that simply hadn’t been available before. That demonstrated that a significant proportion of engineering time was being consumed by avoidable damage, and has driven a measurable behaviour change across the site.
“I’ll go on Agility...look at what jobs are assigned to them, work out the priority. It tells me what’s the most important job.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
Planned maintenance is now fully managed through the system, with jobs assigned to specific shifts and lines. Agility gives Scott the visibility to see what’s scheduled, what’s outstanding, and where preventive and reactive work can be combined efficiently—for example, using a breakdown repair as an opportunity to complete a planned maintenance task on the same piece of equipment at the same time. Live dashboards are used daily by Scott to pull reports together that are made available to key stakeholders across the site. Complete machine cost data is now visible within the system, enabling like-for-like comparisons between identical machines and rapid identification of poor performers. Where two machines are doing the same job, Agility makes it immediately clear if one is costing significantly more to maintain than the other, allowing root cause investigation that simply wasn’t possible before.
“The downtime is unreal compared to what it used to be. We had production lines unavailable for days. The amount of couriers we used to get—same-day parts deliveries because machines had broken down—that was crazy. Those costs have dropped massively. We just had no way of getting any of that data before, and now we can see everything.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
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The Results: A Sustained and Measurable Reduction in Downtime The impact of Agility on engineering downtime at Florette has been dramatic and sustained. Engineering downtime data tracked since implementation tells a clear story of continuous improvement year on year. In 2022 (the first full year of data), the site recorded 326,399 minutes of engineering downtime, averaging 451 hours per month. By 2025, that figure had fallen to 69,107 minutes across the full year—an average of just 96 hours per month. That represents a 79% reduction in total engineering downtime over three years. The trajectory continued into 2026. In the first four months of the year, the business averaged just 20 hours of engineering downtime per month—a figure that would have been unrecognisable against the 2022 baseline. The reduction in major breakdowns (jobs lasting over one hour) follows the same pattern. In 2022, the site recorded 1,344 breakdown jobs of over an hour, averaging 112 per month. By 2025, that had fallen to 365 for the full year, a 73% reduction. And in the first four months of 2026, the monthly average had dropped further still, to just 16 per month.
79%
73%
20 hrs
reduction in total downtime minutes (2022–2025)
reduction in major breakdown jobs over 1 hour (2022–2025)
avg. monthly downtime in 2026 (vs. 451 hrs./month in 2022)
The improvement in downtime has also had a direct impact on reactive purchasing costs. A few years ago, the frequency of unexpected breakdowns meant the site regularly needed same-day parts deliveries. This expensive and disruptive necessity that has become increasingly rare as the volume and severity of breakdowns has declined. Beyond downtime, the data generated by Agility has had a direct impact on business decisions. When the wider business was reviewing potential cost saving measures, Scott was able to present a clear, data-backed picture of how the engineering team spent their time, as well as the direct correlation between engineering activity and machine uptime.
“I was able to say, ‘Here’s three engineers on a shift—that’s their work, what they did yesterday, last week, the week before.’ And I showed that if you take an engineer away, your downtime’s going to go up. The more work you do, the less breakdowns you get, because you’re maintaining the kit. The data proved it.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
The quality of data has also transformed the tone of internal management meetings, resolving disputes that previously has no definitive answer.
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“We used to go into a meeting arguing over downtime—the line went down for three hours yesterday and someone would say ‘No, it was only two.’ Now I go in with a report and say, ‘That’s your downtime for yesterday.’ No arguments. It’s just, that’s what it is.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
For Scott, the relationship with the Agility team has been as important as the system itself. With nearly six years on the platform, there have inevitability been occasional issues along the way, but the experience of being supported through them has reinforced his confidence in the product. Response times are fast, problems get resolved, and the team remains engaged and accessible long after go-live.
“The support is really good. We’ve had issues in the past, but it’s always been resolved. It’s not just, ‘There you go, you bought it, see you later.’” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
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The Future Having fully embedded Agility at the Wigan facility, Florette’s ambition is to extend that success across the wider Agrial Fresh group. Work is currently under way to bring the Lichfield site onto the same level of Agility adoption as Wigan, and Scott is working closely with a new group engineering manager who understands exactly how the system should be used. Plans are also in place to roll out Agility to the group’s farm in Colchester, where the focus will initially be on compliance management, providing a structured system for insurance audits and regulatory requirements in an environment without a dedicated engineering department. In parallel, the business is exploring how to use Agility’s stores functionality to address a growing challenge: two sites carrying duplicate spare parts stock.
“We’re carrying a lot of the same spares at two sites. That’s another thing we’re looking at, and that might be a big one.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
Scott has also been actively exploring the potential of AI within the engineering function, developing use cases and building the business case internally. With Agility already embedded as the team’s single source of operational data, the foundations are in place to take the next step.
“I’ve used a good few systems in 25 years, and this is probably the best one I’ve come across. It’s that simple. The paperless thing for me is a big deal, and it does everything we need it to do.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
Scott’s advice to any business considering Agility is straightforward: Keep everything as simple as possible. Asset names, locations, stores codes—make them accessible to everyone who needs to use the system.
“Keep everything simple. Whether that’s your asset locations, your assets, your store codes. We use four-digit numbers here—it couldn’t be any easier. They relate to where you are, so line one starts with one, line two starts with two. It couldn’t have been easier.” Scott Dunkiert, Maintenance Planner, Florette Wigan
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About SSG Insight, an Aptean Company SSG Insight, an Aptean company, provides effective maintenance and asset management software through its leading solution, Agility. Designed to support smarter decision-making and greater operational control, Agility enables organisations to manage assets, maintenance, and performance with clarity and confidence. With over 42 years of experience and a global client base across sectors including manufacturing, healthcare, transport, utilities, and others, SSG Insight helps businesses unlock efficiencies and plan proactively for the future. To find out more about Agility and how it supports asset-rich organisations, visit www.ssginsight.com. COPYRIGHT © APTEAN 2026. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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