Chobani / Gippsland Dairy

Chobani's Australian manufacturing plant in Dandenong South — a $30 million greenfield facility supplying both domestic and international markets — faced acute equipment reliability risks from the moment it opened. Yogurt production is a continuous process: any unplanned stoppage halts the entire line, requiring a full plant clean-down and restart before production can resume. With global supply agreements in place, stoppages carry significant financial penalties. An initial assessment revealed a critical gap — insufficient spare parts onsite meant that any equipment failure could extend downtime far beyond an acceptable window, threatening delivery commitments and forcing reactive, unbudgeted capital expenditure on parts.

Rockwell Automation, working through its authorized distributor NHP Electrical Engineering Products, conducted an Installed Base Evaluation (IBE) — a comprehensive site-wide audit cataloguing critical assets and identifying reliability gaps across both the new Dandenong South facility and the acquired Gippsland yogurt plant. The IBE findings anchored a three-part lifecycle asset management program. A Parts Management Agreement (PMA) placed a Rockwell-owned spare parts inventory onsite with 24/7 access, any consumed parts replenished within 48 hours at a fixed cost funded within the maintenance budget. An Assurance Integrated Support contract layered on top, providing guaranteed on-site emergency response and unlimited TechConnect™ remote support around the clock. Together, these services replaced unpredictable break-fix spending with a single fixed annual maintenance cost aligned to Chobani's existing Rockwell Automation control infrastructure.

The program delivered measurable reliability and budget improvements across both sites. Key outcomes:

• Fixed maintenance cost: Field service, parts replenishment, equipment audits, and TechConnect™ support consolidated under one fixed-price agreement, eliminating unbudgeted capital outlay on spares.
• 24/7 parts availability: Critical spares stored onsite reduced time-to-repair for any equipment failure, protecting against the line clean-down and restart penalty inherent to continuous dairy production.
• Cost-positive outcome: Chobani's reliability manager confirmed the service agreement cost less than purchasing the equivalent spare parts inventory outright, while also including access to the latest software updates.

The program materially reduced the risk of production stoppages that would trigger penalties under Chobani's global supply contracts.

• Conduct an installed base evaluation before designing a maintenance program — it surfaces hidden gaps like insufficient spare parts inventory not visible from operational data alone.
• Fixed-price lifecycle agreements often cost less than building an equivalent internal spare parts stockpile, while bundling labor, software, and expert support.
• In continuous-process food manufacturing, the true cost of downtime includes the full line clean-down and restart cycle, not just lost production minutes — this should anchor any uptime business case.
• Pairing onsite spare parts management with guaranteed response-time contracts closes both the parts gap and the skills gap in a single contract structure.
• Aligning maintenance services to the plant's existing automation vendor simplifies accountability and accelerates fault resolution when failures occur.