Kerry Group
How Kerry Group used predictive maintenance to protect critical food and beverage production assets, plan repairs ahead of failure, and generate an estimated $43,000 in avoided costs.
From Challenge to Solution
Every project comes with obstacles. Here’s how we identified the problem and built a solution that delivered lasting impact.
The Challenge
Food and beverage production environments are tough on rotating equipment. At Kerry Group, heat, moisture, vibration, and high utilization all contributed to reliability risk.
Summer made those challenges even more visible. Equipment ran harder, air compressors were impacted by heat, and certain assets operated in hot or wet environments where failures could develop quickly. Jeremy noted that water exposure from sanitation and washdown processes can be especially damaging.
“In the food and beverage industry, there’s a lot of areas where you have wet washes, where they do a chemical wash, sanitizing type wash, and then they do rinses on it. And water is just so hard on rotating equipment.”
Some assets carried outsized production risk. Fluidizing dryers, for example, supported both direct customer production and additional downstream lines. Blowers used to move raw product also had the potential to impact production across the facility.
The maintenance team needed a way to identify developing issues earlier, prioritize the right repairs, and avoid emergency work that could disrupt production.
The Solution
Kerry Group began with a focused AssetWatch deployment across roughly 20 critical assets and about 100 sensors. Rather than spreading monitoring across every machine, the team concentrated on known bad actors and assets with high consequences of failure.
Initial monitoring included:
- Fluidizing dryers
- Blowers
- Rotating equipment exposed to high heat
- Assets in wet washdown areas
- Equipment with known reliability concerns
This targeted approach gave Jeremy and his team early insight into developing equipment issues without overwhelming the maintenance program. AssetWatch’s data and analyst support helped the site move from identifying a trend to making a specific maintenance decision.
Scaling With Confidence
Kerry Group’s initial results created momentum for expansion. After the first two months, Jeremy was already discussing additional sensors and had requested more coverage for another known bad actor.
For Jeremy, AssetWatch’s model also helped make the program easier to support over time. Instead of worrying about whether the technology would become outdated, he valued the ability to continue improving with the platform.
That combination of measurable savings, practical support, and scalable technology helped Kerry Group build confidence in predictive maintenance as a long-term reliability strategy.
Assets Monitored
Kerry Group started with a focused deployment across roughly 20 assets, prioritizing equipment with the greatest production impact and reliability risk.
Sensors Installed
The initial program included about 100 sensors across critical rotating equipment, known bad actors, and high-risk production assets.
Major Wins in 2 Months
Within the first two months of monitoring, the site identified three major issues early enough to plan repairs before breakdowns occurred.
Estimated Savings
By shifting three repairs from reactive breakdowns to planned maintenance, Kerry Group estimated approximately $43,000 in avoided costs.
Another thing that I’ve really liked about AssetWatch, that kind of stands above some of what I’ve used in the past, is my access to my person or my people at AssetWatch. I have a normal meeting that’s set up every few weeks with them.
Looking Ahead
For food and beverage manufacturers, reliability programs need to deliver practical value quickly. Kerry Group’s experience shows how a focused predictive maintenance program can help teams protect critical assets, reduce emergency work, and build momentum for broader reliability improvements.
By starting with the right assets and using AssetWatch to identify problems before failure, Kerry Group was able to turn early warnings into planned maintenance and measurable savings.
Savings Over 2 Months
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AWS infrastructure reduces operational overhead and allows AssetWatch to focus on innovation to drive value to our customers. Additionally, AWS’s strong security framework and global infrastructure ensure the resilience and compliance required to support mission-critical manufacturing operations at scale. This partnership positions AssetWatch to accelerate growth while maintaining the highest levels of performance and reliability.
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