Why Preventive Maintenance in Food Manufacturing Depends on Better Communication

In food manufacturing, equipment failures are often not caused by maintenance alone. The real problem can be that production, maintenance, and quality teams don't share information effectively.

An operator notices an unusual noise but mentions it only in passing. A technician fixes a fault without documenting it. Quality identifies recurring defects, but no one can see the maintenance history behind them. Valuable information disappears into notebooks, phone calls, or individual memory.

Without reliable maintenance records, recurring failures are difficult to spot, priorities become unclear, and teams spend their time reacting instead of preventing problems. In an industry where downtime, waste, and food safety all affect profitability, poor communication quickly becomes an operational risk.

Preventive maintenance is therefore about much more than following a schedule. It requires a shared view of what's happening across the plant, so every maintenance activity contributes to better decisions the next time an issue occurs.

A Practical Lesson from Berman Bakery

Berman Bakery faced a challenge that will sound familiar to many food manufacturers.

The issue was not a lack of capable maintenance professionals. The bigger problem was communication.

For a high-volume bakery, where production defects, downtime, and quality issues quickly translate into waste, this kind of communication gap can become expensive very quickly.

As Ilan Goudsmid, Head of Technology and Innovation at Berman Bakeries, explained:

"When I returned to Berman, I wanted to find the main organizational pain point—and it was obvious: poor communication between production, maintenance, and quality. Everyone worked in their own corner, problems were scribbled in notebooks, and we were constantly chasing breakdowns instead of preventing them."

Like many manufacturers, the lack of structured historical maintenance data made it difficult to understand recurring problems, monitor maintenance activity, and build a proactive maintenance strategy.

Rather than simply implementing new software, Berman focused on changing the way information flowed through the organisation.

Working with AnyMaint, the team introduced a standardised reporting process across the factory. Machines were labelled with QR codes, operators were trained to report issues directly from their smartphones, and maintenance activity became visible in real time.

As Goudsmid described: "Once people saw that reports led to real action, everyone got on board."

The technology supported the transformation, but leadership made it possible.

What Other Food Manufacturers Can Learn

The Berman story offers lessons that extend well beyond one bakery.

1. Leadership Drives Change

Successful maintenance transformation starts with clear leadership.

New systems only create value when management establishes consistent ways of working and demonstrates that reporting leads to meaningful action.

2. Good Data Begins on the Factory Floor

Historical maintenance data does not appear automatically.

At Berman, the shift began with simple reporting from the people closest to the machines: operators and technicians. This kind of reporting helps build an accurate maintenance history over time.

That history becomes one of the organisation's most valuable operational assets.

3. Communication Enables Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance depends on knowing what has happened before.

When production, maintenance, and quality teams share one source of operational information, recurring issues become visible, priorities become clearer, and maintenance planning becomes far more effective.

4. Adoption Is Essential

Many maintenance projects struggle because the software is too difficult for everyday users.

Factory-floor adoption is not a secondary objective—it is the foundation of successful digital maintenance.

If reporting is simple, people use it. If people use it, management gains visibility. With better visibility comes better decision-making.

Turning Information into Action with AnyMaint

The experience at Berman Bakery reflects a broader approach to industrial maintenance.

AnyMaint is designed to connect people, equipment, events, and operational data into one clear workflow, making it easier for maintenance and production teams to work from the same information.

Its mobile-first platform supports rapid reporting from the factory floor, while multilingual workflows help organisations standardise maintenance processes across diverse teams. Preventive, corrective, and predictive maintenance all operate in one place, helping teams move beyond isolated work orders toward real operational control.

Actionable AI further supports maintenance teams by helping prioritise work, preserving maintenance knowledge, and giving managers clearer visibility into where attention is needed most—not replacing human expertise, but helping teams respond faster and make better-informed decisions.

Better Communication Creates Better Maintenance

Many organisations begin their maintenance improvement journey by looking for better software.

The stronger question is whether everyone is working from the same information.

Berman Bakery's transformation demonstrates that preventive maintenance in food manufacturing is built on communication, leadership, and consistent execution as much as maintenance planning itself.

Within months of shifting from reactive to preventive maintenance, Berman reduced production defects by 37%, while gaining complete transparency into maintenance activity. Link to the

As Ilan Goudsmid summarised:

"Today everything is documented and transparent. We know exactly what was fixed, when, and by whom. Within months, we shifted from reactive maintenance to preventive maintenance—and reduced losses from production defects by 37%."

For food manufacturers facing similar challenges, the lesson is clear: improving communication can be the first step towards improving maintenance performance.

Want to see how AnyMaint helps food manufacturers improve communication, standardise maintenance workflows, and move from reactive to preventive maintenance? Explore our food manufacturing maintenance solutions.