Case Study: Moving from Assumed Resilience to Risk Awareness

Summary

A major UK food manufacturer engaged iconsys to carry out a Site Assessment at a high-volume FMCG production site. While obsolescence risks were recognised, priorities and extent were unclear.

The assessment delivered immediate clarity, challenged assumptions around “manageable” risk, saved significant internal engineering time, and provided a clear, evidence-based roadmap to protect production and guide future investment.

The Challenge

A leading UK food manufacturer operating a high-volume production site was increasingly aware that parts of its automation estate were ageing and approaching obsolescence.

Years of incremental upgrades had created a complex, multi-vendor environment supporting business-critical operations. While engineers understood obsolescence existed, prioritising risk across the installed base and develop and action plan proved difficult and time consuming.

In some cases, risk was considered manageable. Obsolete drives, for example, were viewed as interchangeable provided the power rating matched. However, this view was based on assumption rather than structured analysis.

The real challenge was distinguishing between perceived resilience and genuine operational risk.

The Approach

iconsys delivered a vendor-agnostic Site Assessment, using a structured, non-intrusive methodology to establish an evidence-based view of the automation estate.

The assessment covered:

Installed base discovery and asset mapping

Lifecycle and obsolescence analysis across key systems

Asset criticality scoring aligned to production impact

Review of spares, maintenance practices and support readiness

Findings were consolidated into a clear, traffic-light risk model with practical recommendations.

The Insight

During assessment discussions, the engineering team reflected on a previous incident where an entire motor control centre containing multiple drives failed, resulting in two days of lost production.

Individually, each drive appeared interchangeable. Collectively, multiple failures of similar drives and lifecycle dependencies created a far greater risk than anticipated.

The Site Assessment reinforced the importance of assessing obsolescence at a system level, not just component by component.

The Outcome

The assessment delivered immediate value:

Clear prioritisation of critical, medium and low-risk assets

Evidence-based decision-making replacing assumption

One engineer estimated around two weeks of internal engineering effort saved on their plant area alone

A credible, independent roadmap for future investment and budgeting discussions

The Business Case

From a cost-benefit perspective:

Internal time savings alone exceeded the cost of the assessment

Reduced exposure to unplanned downtime from underestimated obsolescence

Enabled phased, prioritised investment rather than reactive response to failure

Scaling the Value

Delivered as a single-site, single plant area pilot, the approach proved its value quickly and with minimal disruption. The same methodology can now be replicated across additional plant areas and sites to provide consistent, group-level visibility of automation risk.

Why this matters

Obsolescence is rarely a surprise. What is often underestimated is how quickly assumed resilience can lead to lost production.

iconsys’ Site Assessment provides the clarity needed to challenge assumptions, identify hidden risk, and protect operational performance with confidence.

Helping companies improve safety, profitability, security, reliability and productivity through innovative solutions.