Rooted in tradition, leading through innovation & excellence
Dr. Schär is the global market leader for gluten-free products and foods for people with special dietary needs. Founded over 100 years ago, the company has grown from a South Tyrolean family business into a global player with 18 sites in 12 countries and around 1,800 employees. As a specialist in nutritional solutions, Dr. Schär relies on innovation through research, largely self-developed and often highly complex production techniques, and the highest quality standards. All production facilities of the Dr. Schär Group operate according to identical standards.
Managing complexity at global scale
Prior to the implementation of Ultimo's EAM solutions, Dr. Schär faced several key asset management issues:
Existing ERP system limited in functionality
Insufficient tools for organizing and planning maintenance tasks
No mobile usability
No cross-site data capture or usage
As a result, Dr. Schär began looking for a more capable and future-ready solution. The decision followed an in-depth comparison of several providers. The ultimate choice: Ultimo EAM software. The Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solution is being rolled out at all 12 production sites in 9 countries, each operating an average of 400 machines across multiple production lines.
“We chose Ultimo as our maintenance management solution because the cloud-based Enterprise Asset Management software offers the most capabilities and aligns with our best-in-class standards.” – Martin Lorefice, Corporate Technical Project Manager, Dr. Schär
Enterprise Asset Management Excellence
To maintain its position as an industry leader, Dr. Schär acknowledged that it needed a maintenance management solution that could match its own best-in-class standards.
The main goals of the Ultimo EAM’s implementation were to:
Reduce downtime, increase production efficiency and improve cost-control
Deploy a unified EAM solution with shared insights across 12 production sites in 9 countries
Adapt the Ultimo EAM software to fit existing processes and unify workflows across plants
Implement data-driven, preventive maintenance practices
The existing system for managing maintenance tasks is being fully replaced. Ultimo is being rolled out across their 12 production sites in 9 countries.
With multiple stakeholders and departments involved, the global rollout required careful orchestration and an implementation plan that would cater to the varying levels of maturity in maintenance management across different locations. A multi-phase implementation plan was developed to ensure acceptance among employees and smooth transitions.
At the company's headquarters in Burgstall, South Tyrol, the initial implementation of Ultimo was successfully completed in just six months, providing the foundation for the broader international rollout.
Setting new standards for global food manufacturing
The benefits achieved so far are:
Successful transition from reactive to preventive maintenance
Approximately 30% increased asset availability
Significantly shorter Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
Improved resource allocation
Proactive identification and use of optimization potential
Dr Schär is highly satisfied with both the progress and initial results achieved:
“With Ultimo, we've transitioned from reactive to preventive maintenance. Downtime has already dropped by approx. 30%, and MTTR has noticeably improved. We’ll continue tracking these metrics more precisely to further optimize our maintenance tasks.” – Martin Lorefice, Corporate Technical Project Manager, Dr. Schär
Looking ahead: centralized asset monitoring and data-driven optimization
With Ultimo, Dr. Schär will be able to assess the sustainability of production processes, identify further optimization potential, and track progress - all based on reliable real-time data.
“Rolling out Ultimo across all sites is just the beginning: we’re planning to use AI to optimize our processes and introduce centralized condition monitoring for an overview of all assets. We also aim to expand with features like augmented reality to better support operators and maintenance teams. We’re excited to continue working together with the Ultimo team.” – Martin Lorefice, Corporate Technical Project Manager.
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