A winery in Marlborough had been operating for about 30 years, evolving through various people and management approaches over that time, but there was no cohesive system to capture and manage their maintenance knowledge, and historical information was either paper-based or stored in people’s heads.
They knew they needed a user-friendly system that could bring structure to decades of institutional knowledge. For a winery, equipment reliability isn’t just about avoiding breakdowns; they need to be able to process fruit at optimal times, and delays can directly impact product quality.
Step #1: Training First
The first step was training for the maintenance team. Before we even talked about software, the technical team got a refresher in the fundamentals of maintenance management to help them see the gaps in their current reactive maintenance approach. The training helped them gain insight into where they were losing time, responding to breakdowns and emergencies rather than working from a planned schedule.
Once the team was clear on what they were actually trying to achieve, purchasing the cloud-based MainTrak CMMS was the logical next step.
Step #2: Gathering Data at the Winery
The next challenge was gathering everything needed to get started: asset registers, maintenance routines, spare parts inventories, photos, documentation, etc.
For a site that had been operating for three decades, this was substantial, and like many operations with history, some of it was written down somewhere, some of it lived in the memory of long-serving staff, and some of it had probably walked out the door with people who’d moved on over the years.
Our experience shows that some clients can take a long time to get their maintenance management system up and running as they try to combine data integration with their day-to-day activities. The team took us up on our offer to take care of their Field Data Mapping for them; we put boots on the ground at their Marlborough site for a week to map their assets, PM routines, spares, etc, and to train both management and technical staff in using the CMMS once installed.
After just three days, the team was able to push the green button and hit the ground running, with everything mapped, photographed, and loaded into the system, ready for immediate use.
One Single Source of Knowledge
While they’ve only just begun using the MainTrak CMMS, the maintenance team is already saving significant time when they need to find information. Instead of hunting through filing cabinets, asking around to see who remembers how something was done last vintage, or trying to locate spare parts in various storage areas, they can pull up the asset in MainTrak and find everything they need: maintenance history, photos, specifications, and parts information all in one place.
New staff or seasonal workers can access decades of institutional knowledge from day one rather than relying on knowledge that may or may not get passed on, and the maintenance planner can optimize schedules based on actual operational data rather than guesswork or tradition.
From Reactive to Proactive Maintenance
They’ve also made the transition from reactive to proactive maintenance. Instead of responding to breakdowns and emergencies (often at the worst possible time), they’re now working from a planned schedule based on the actual condition and requirements of equipment, maintaining assets before they fail rather than after.
When the fruit is ready, the equipment needs to be ready too. For a winery where vintage waits for no one and equipment reliability is critical for the quality of their product, this shift gives them full control over their operations.
The three days we invested on-site has given this winery a platform that will serve them for years to come, supporting their mission to produce quality New Zealand wine with the efficiency and reliability that comes from professional maintenance management. They’ve moved from paper-based knowledge to a cohesive system that captures and retains their institutional learning, ready for any future engineers or maintenance staff to tap into.
Interested in learning more about MainTrak maintenance management software? Visit our homepage or get in touch with our team.