Eriks handles MRO procurement for Weetabix

Weetabix has signed a three-year outsourcing contract for Eriks Integrated Solutions to take control of its MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) procurement and stores at its Burton Latimer site.

Key tasks for Eriks are to take responsibility for the stores, reduce the time engineers spend sourcing products, ensure compliance with purchasing procedure and provide detailed information about how the maintenance budget is spent, resulting in reduced MRO consumption with increased productivity.

Prior to its outsourcing contract with Eriks, Weetabix was aware of the improvements that could be made to its MRO operation, centred on a large, traditionally run store administered via a paper-based system.

A major part of the improvement has been the conversion of a building on the 75-acre Weetabix site, which had previously been used to house redundant equipment, with a 10,000-item capacity, purpose-built store and offices.

A second important element has been the way in which Eriks has addressed the personnel needed to run the operation.

Eriks supported the stores supervisor with a member of staff whose function was to progress orders.

In addition, a service centre manager from the Eriks organisation was promoted from another site to be the manager of the Weetabix site.

The paper-based system for requisitioning engineering spares has been replaced by Eriks' own paperless stores management software product which, through the use of bar coding, enables the 9,500 stock items to be traced accurately through the system.

The advantages of this software, developed in-house by Eriks, are not only the replacement of the paper system but also the management information which can be gleaned from the data produced.

For the first time, Damien Magill, chief engineer at Weetabix, has the information available to see which assets on the site are consuming the most spares.

He said: 'We now have regular information on what items are being taken from the stores by which person and to which factory.

'With this information we can make improvements in our processes, through benchmarking how one asset performs against another for example.

An added benefit for Weetabix is that by harnessing the purchasing power of the Eriks Group, it is able to reduce the purchase price of its MRO products, which, over the three years of the contract, will lead to a significant saving in itself.

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