News & Events
Maintec 2010 – please visit us on Stand F9!
February 2010. We’re once again looking forward to seeing all our old and new friends at Maintec. It’s been a harrowing year for many out there and some of our customers, thankfully very few, have not made it through the difficult times. If what the EEF and CBI says is true, the worst is over. Happy days! And, judging by the sales of Pirana CMMS in the past months, engineers seem to be pulling it together for their organisations by going all out to dump their paper-based systems. If you still don’t use a CMMS, why not come along and find out how it can transform your effectiveness, make life a whole lot easier and boost the organisation’s bottom line? After all, maintenance management is complex, your time is precious and UK PLC expects everyone to do their duty. Don’t hold back because of cost! Shire removed that entry barrier with price-busting Pirana. See you on Stand F9.
Convincing your boss about CMMS
January 2010. Engineering and Service Managers often face an uphill battle when selling the idea of CMMS and its benefits to the boss. The powers that be sometimes don’t quite appreciate the immense amount of information you have to process in the daily battle to keep chaos at bay. This slideshow - Asset Management & CMMS – aims to give more power to your elbow. It scrutinises the information needs of the job in a clear-cut, non-technical and thought-provoking way. We hope you enjoy the show and find it useful. Good luck!
On-Tap CMMS
November 2009. In this era of economic challenge, ever-tighter purse-strings and even more tight-fisted banks, you may not be able to obtain capital approval or find the cash to buy the software licences and hardware needed to set up a conventional computerised maintenance management system. No problem! You can now get state-of-the-art CMMS on easy terms. AND, you can avoid all those time-consuming and scary IT hassles at the same time.
Pirana On-TapTM is available for a modest monthly fee. This Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) CMMS is the ultimately affordable, zero-hassle computerised maintenance management solution. Read about it here and then give us a ring.
Babes in a Boat
November 2009. Many of you will have been trained in CMMS use by Shire applications specialist Mike Radband. If you happen to be on one of his training courses and he seems a little agitated, it’s probably because his daughter Karen is about to row the Atlantic! Karen, a civil engineer with Mott MacDonald, has been given a couple of months off from road-building to go on the 3000 mile adventure. On 6th December, she leaves the shores of Europe and heads off across the pond with three friends in their rowboat ‘Mission Atlantic’. Collectively known as the Atlantic Water Babes, they’re aiming to break the women’s fours 51 days record for the crossing. Good luck and Godspeed girls. Check out the boat and babes at www.atlanticwaterbabes.com.
The big fight - ERP versus CMMS
September 2009. We’ve had a number of calls from frustrated and distraught engineering managers informing us that they are in a fight to keep their Shire CMMS. Their opponent is invariably SAP PM, championed by senior management. If you are in this unfortunate position, take a look at this slideshow, it could provide some welcome ammunition. It was compiled for our resellers, but you may find it helpful as well. Good luck!
The Trials of Legionella
August 2009. In 2002, following the 7 deaths and 180 injuries caused by Legionnaires’ disease arising from maintenance failures at a council-owned facility in Barrow, engineering managers rushed to close loopholes in their PM schedules. But it’s all too easy for standards to slip. In the past month alone the HSE has prosecuted two companies for a lack of diligence in their maintenance inspections. The first transgressor was a food plant, were legionella bacteria was discovered in the wash water, and the other a chain of care homes where domestic water systems were found to be contaminated. In each case, the fines were about £25k and costs awarded were £20k. That’s on top of the cost of defence, diversion of management time and loss of reputation – and possibly someone’s ruined career. By pure luck there were no fatalities in these cases. Any system containing water at temperatures between 20 to 45 degrees Celsius presents a potential threat. Is your CMMS properly set up to trigger the necessary inspections? Are you sure you’re on top of things?
Chemical stars score at Murrayfield
July 2009. The UK chemical industry’s premier accolades were handed out at the 2009 Chemical Industry Awards ceremony held at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium on 25th June. Congratulations to the Shire CMMS-users walking off with prizes: GlaxoSmithKline, Croda, Johnson Matthey and Lucite. Well done!
Superbrands use super CMMS
July 2009. The top brands for this year, as determined by consumer survey, have been announced by Superbrand UK. The Superbrand list reads like Shire’s customer list - from BBC to BP, Harrods to Holiday Inn, Dyson to Dunlop – congratulations to all! How come they missed Shire off the list? By the way, FrontLine-user Aston Martin is still the Number One CoolBrand in the UK.
Lean guru leans on management
July 2009. Some of you will have picked up on Dan Jones’ quote about Lean and the recession in our slideshow Lean Maintenance Performance Management. In his latest message to industry, Doing the Wrong Things, Dr Jones, the acclaimed UK leader of Lean, takes a swipe at senior management. He puts his finger on one big problem: effectiveness is all about doing the right things and senior management isn’t. His views may accord with your own - have a read.
Measure to improve – getting to grips with Performance Indicators
June 2009. Maintenance performance improvement is the current buzz in every sector; Performance Indicators and KPIs are at the top of the management agenda. But the subject can be daunting and there’s no doubting its ability to confuse. To help bring some clarity to the situation we’ve presented the issues in a new whitepaper which you can download here:Key Performance Indicators - what you need to know (210KB)
The Silver Dome gets gold
May 2009. Congratulations to Pirana CMMS-user Veolia Environmental Services for receiving a prestigious PPF Award at the 2009 Public Private Finance Awards ceremony held in London on 19th May. Their famous and architecturally stunning ‘Silver Dome’ facility at Marchwood, Hampshire, clinched a Best Designed Project gong. The huge dome, housing a 17MW electricity from non-recyclable household waste recovery unit, dominates Southampton Water - just a stone’s throw from the Shire office.
Pirana becomes even more mean for Lean
April 2009. Good news for the Pirana users patiently queuing for site level security, or enhanced on-screen reporting and key performance indicators. These add-ons are available immediately! Engineering Managers with multi-site responsibility can now maintain equipment, Work Order, materials and contact information confidentiality at each locality, while allowing unrestricted access and total visibility to a privileged few. The recession has inevitably made performance improvement a universal management concern. Everyone has to tighten up, so the new help provided by Pirana couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. To order your thoughts on maintenance performance improvement and decide how Pirana - or any other CMMS - needs to be configured, why not settle back and study this overview of maintenance key performance indicators. For essential background information on the nature of leading and lagging maintenance indicators, you should also view our Lean Maintenance slideshow.
Maintec Thanks to All
March 2009. A big thanks to all those that visited us at Maintec 2009 – over 200 maintenance professionals! Mamma mia, the recession is certainly driving a heightened interest in performance management and CMMS - who can live without it, I ask in all honesty; what would life be? And thanks to those that attended the educational LearnShop we presented on Lean Maintenance. The workshop explored cutting edge issues in maintenance management. You can view this major slideshow here. The theme is the pivotal role played by you, the Engineering Manager, in increasing manufacturing performance – never more crucial than in this time of recession. Please take a look; we’re sure that you’ll find the ideas thought-provoking and enlightening - invaluable for formulating your organisation’s survival strategy and assuring your own future success
Visit us at Maintec 2009 - Stand 142
February 2009. It’s that time of year again and we’re looking
forward to seeing you all at Maintec. There’s always a buzz at this
show because it’s the innovation showcase for all things maintenance
- and maintenance keeps the wheels of industry turning, recession or not.
Browser-based Pirana CMMS was released at Maintec last year and has been
a huge success. At this year’s show, the astonishing power and technology
of new Pirana 2 is set to blow your socks right
back off again. Don’t waste time on T-cards, paper systems and spreadsheets
when proper CMMS now costs so little. Proud to be British, we’ll also
be demonstrating FrontLine, the best-ever selling UK CMMS. A design classic
and surely in the same league as an AC Cobra or a Rolex Oyster? You can
also catch a demo of Food Sentinel™, our HACCP-enabled auditing and
monitoring gem. See you there!
Maintenance professionalism
January 2009. Paul Dean, Shire’s Director of Operations, has joined the Professional Engineer’s chapter of the Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals www.smrp.org. The Society is at the forefront of defining maintenance best practices, metrics and KPIs and will issue major guidance on the subject later this year. Paul will ensure that emerging best practice is reflected in Pirana, Shire’s ground-breaking, browser-based CMMS.
Happy New Year Foodies! Apply for your FREE gift
December 2008. In the downturn, businesses in all sectors are struggling to survive, not least cash strapped, low margin food manufacturers. Shire is anxious to do its bit to help. As a New Year gift, we are giving away Food Sentinel™ HACCP-based total quality management software systems to 5 UK food factories. Applicants presenting the most compelling picture of the system’s expected benefits will secure the gifts.
Struggles with the BRC standard
December 2008. Certification companies have reported to Food Manufacture magazine that food factories seem to be struggling with the new, more rigorous BRC Global Food Standard Version 5. Several of the first factories audited, previously grade A, have gone down to grades B and C. Management commitment and continual improvement are causing headaches. To hit the new targets, Senior Management must be fully involved – things can no longer just be left to the Technical Manager. Version 5 audits are also taking longer. It seems to us that using a computerised quality management system would allow more detailed and meticulous internal audits, better enforcement of across-the-board compliance, shared management information and the driving and facilitation of continual improvement – all while saving a whole lot of everyone’s time! But, as producers of revolutionary Food Sentinel, we would be against time-wasting, cost-inflating, opaque, fragmented and inaccurate paper and spreadsheet systems wouldn’t we?
Excellent Foodies
November 2008. The winners of the prestigious Food Manufacture Excellence Awards were announced at a lavish dinner in London’s Grosvenor Square on 13th November. Standing on the podium were Greencore, Premier Foods and Peter’s Foods. The winners have another thing in common too – they all use a Shire system. Congratulations to all!
Compliance with prerequisites
November 2008. The BSI’s new specification PAS 220, ‘Prerequisite programmes on food safety for food manufacturing’ was published this month. Shire customers Kraft Foods, Nestle and Unilever assisted in its development. Detailed requirements are laid down for the make-or-break factors on which food safety depends. Why not load them into Food Sentinel? It’s then straightforward to add the myriads of sub-requirements needing to be satisfied at your particular facility for it to be in compliance. The devil is always in the detail. With Food Sentinel it’s easy to gain control and increase compliance while saving time and money.
Pirana bites in the market
October 2008. Back at their benches following the summer break, engineers in every sector are showing huge interest in Pirana CMMS. Hundreds of companies are currently evaluating our new web-based system and sales are racking up. Pirana is deadly to disorder, disruption and downtime and clearly hits the spot as far as engineers are concerned. For a rock-bottom price, it does just what you want and using it is child’s play - Pirana raises the bar for price-performance and ease of use. If you haven’t seen it yet, sign up for a free Roadshow or request a free Demo CD. For ultimate insight, why not enrol in a Pirana Implementation Course – you’ll pick up a lot of valuable tips on best practice maintenance management into the bargain - not free, but good value and rapidly selling out!
Material Success
September 2008. Congratulations to Shire-system-user Saint-Gobain on their success at the 2008 Best Factory Awards ceremony held this month; they walked away with an armful of trophies. Europe-based conglomerate Saint-Gobain manufactures and distributes materials into the worldwide construction, industrial and consumer markets.
FrontLine users receive prestigious enterprise award.
May 2008. The Queen's Award for Enterprise is one of the most prestigious accolades a UK company can receive. In 2008, Her Majesty conferred Her Award on the following FrontLine users - congratulations to Sheffield Forgemasters, Weir Minerals and Utilicom Group.
CIBSE Guide M – Maintenance Engineering & Management
May 2008.This month, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers – of which Shire is a Patron – has introduced an important new guide for maintainers and facilities managers. The wide-ranging 130 page guide is essential reading. Amongst the many topical and pressing issues addressed in Guide M are energy use in response to climate change, risk assessment and risk management. A number of very useful checklists have been provided.A capital time in India
May 2008. Paul Dean, Shire’s Director of Operations, had the honour of being a guest speaker at India’s second National Machinery Health Management Seminar organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). 170 senior managers and engineers from manufacturers throughout India attended the two day event held at the sprawling and hugely impressive Federation House, located in the heart of New Delphi. Paul spoke about the complex problem of holistic asset management, with emphasis on the third pillar of TPM – Preventive Maintenance - and how CMMS can aid the mutually supportive activities of planned preventive maintenance and planned prioritised repair (backlog management).Set up in 1927, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, FICCI is the rallying point for free enterprises in India. FICCI maintains the lead as the proactive business solution provider through research, interactions at the highest political level and global networking.
Yo ho ho and millions of bottles of rum
April 2008. Training Manager Fraser Richardson is off to Florida - but it’s no holiday! Bacardi has decided to replace its current Datastream MP2 CMMS system with Shire’s FrontLine at its vast bottling plant in Jacksonville. Fraser will deliver training and consultancy to get the system up and running smoothly. 30 engineers are being trained. The Jacksonville plant is one of the largest liquor bottling plants in the world and Bacardi’s only facility in the USA – its largest market. There are now a number of global companies on the eastern seaboard of the USA happily being supported by the Shire Team in Southampton.
Do you know how Bacardi’s distinctive black bat logo came about? When Don Facundo Bacardi Maso, the founder of the company, began production over 140 years ago in Cuba, his original tin-roofed distillery was also home to a number of bats.
Off to incredible India
April 2008. The car industry in India is flourishing and the uptake of Shire’s
FrontLine in India’s automotive sector has been tremendous. Shire is
sending a project team to India in the April-May period to carry out maintenance
education and systems training for new FrontLine-user companies in Bangalore,
Chennai and Delhi. The trip has been arranged by ABCON,
Shire’s local partner and industry experts, and is being supported by
UK Trade & Investment.Euromaintenance 2008
April 2008. Europe’s premier maintenance conference takes place in Brussels on 8th to 10th April. www.euromaintenance.org. One of the highlight events will be a presentation and workshop given by FrontLine-user ING Renault Formula 1. The methods used to increase performance and reliability will be debated, together with the ‘pit stop strategies’ now adopted by industry to time-compress maintenance outages.
Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act
This comes into force on 6th April 2008, across the UK. The Act sets out a new offence for convicting an organisation where a gross failure in the way activities were managed results in a person’s death. Those who disregard safety will be more vulnerable to very serious criminal charges; courts will look at management systems and practices across the organisation. The offence does not require organisations to comply with new regulatory standards but presents “an opportunity for employers to think again about how risks are managed”. Shire software can help organisations discharge their duty of care. With CMMS or Safety 1st software you can maintain tight surveillance on work equipment condition and compliance. Systems of work, operating procedures and H & S practices can be monitored and controlled with our ground-breaking auditing tool Food Sentinel. You can download detailed guidance on the Act at www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/manslaughteractguidance.htmFoodex Meatex Shire News
After a fabulous Maintec 2008, where visitors gave the emphatic thumbs up to Pirana CMMS - the latest addition to our software family - the Shire team will be again on their bikes and heading back the NEC for Foodex Meatex. This is the food industry’s premier exhibition and runs from 6th to 9th April. Come along to Stand V349 and see how Shire software can solve your problems. Take a look at Food Sentinel™, Pirana and FrontLine – the UK’s best selling computerised maintenance system. FrontLine is well-loved in the food industry. Darren Dunstan, Group Chief Engineer of Saint Merryn Food, says: “Since setting up FrontLine, we’ve had no compliance issues with our external auditors as far as maintenance is concerned. In fact, we’ve always been awarded a green.” Saint Merryn supply an amazing 800 tonnes of pre-packed red meat per week to TESCO's 1300 supermarkets and stores in the UK.
Visit us and see our latest CMMS at Maintec
February 2008. Once again Shire will be at Maintec to see old friends and meet new ones. This year we will be unveiling our all new, web-enabled CMMS. What’s in it for you is still secret, so no details before show week! The Team will also be demonstrating FrontLine, the UK’s best-selling CMMS, Safety 1st PAT testing and inspection software, and Food Sentinel™ – our ground-breaking, HACCP-enabled auditing and monitoring system. Drop by; we’d love to see you.
HSE warns UK companies about poor maintenance
February 2008. In January, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) issued a warning to employers that they must regularly inspect and maintain their equipment to protect their workers. This followed HSE’s prosecution of a Birmingham company after an operator lost part of his left hand. The accident occurred as a result of a damaged interlock on a sludge handling plant. The HSE inspector said: “This was an entirely avoidable accident which resulted in a man losing four fingers. Injuries from poorly-maintained equipment remain a significant and regular problem nationwide and companies must ensure that equipment is regularly inspected and maintained so workers aren’t exposed to this kind of risk.” For details about how to set up an inspection program, read the Shire whitepaper ‘Inspection-based PM’.
Zero emissions vehicle manufacturer chooses FrontLine
January 2008. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Head-turning motor vehicles are no longer just about awesome speed and power. In the era of global warming, low carbon footprint is becoming the new cool. New FrontLine user Scooters India offers zero emission transport with their 8-seater, go-for-8 hours-on-one-change electric three-wheeler. Their Vikram EV received the thumbs up from no les than ex-US President Bill Clinton on a recent visit to India.
Heathrow moves to Hampshire!
November 2007. Best wishes to Safety 1st user NATS, National Air Traffic Services, on their move from West Drayton near Heathrow to Swanwick in glorious Hampshire – they’re now right on Shire’s doorstep! At the world’s biggest international air traffic centre, 300 air traffic staff work with 200 engineers and support staff. The Swanwick facility on the M27, was built on the site of the now defunct Burseldon brickworks, whose bricks can be found in grand British colonial buildings from Canada to India. A Conservation Centre has been retained on the original site where you can see the preserved brick-making machinery and kilns. It’s well worth a visit.
Lean management wins the day for Esca
November 2007. Congratulations to FrontLine user Esca Food Solutions on winning the 2007 Food Manufacture Excellence Award in the Meat and Poultry division. Esca is an advocate of Lean in more ways than one! The company processes 7000 cattle a week into burger patties for McDonald’s 1200 outlets in the UK.
FrontLine user Triumph is cool – it’s official
October 2007. Congratulations to FrontLine-user Triumph Motorcycles on achieving prestigious CoolBrand status. This award for Innovation, Style and Desirability is conferred on only the most ice-cool of UK brands. Triumph joins fellow FrontLine-user Aston Martin – voted the UK’s coolest brand for the second year running. We wish the Triumph team the same success in the 2008 Supersport World Championship.
Cosworth races on to new heights
September 2007. Congratulations to FrontLine user Cosworth on becoming one of the select group of British high-tech manufacturers with prestigious AS/EN9100 Certification. Increasingly, Cosworth is applying its in-depth Formula 1 and motor sport expertise to the aerospace sector and beyond.
Embrace ultimate mobility with the latest GPRS-enabled release of FrontLine
September 2007. Organisations with widely geographically dispersed workforces can now deploy FrontLine on the Move on their workers' mobile phones. For a peanut-sized investment you get heaps of extra benefits. Read about it here.
Shire proudly announces the attainment of Gold Certified status in the Microsoft Partner Program
September 2007. Gold Certified Partners represent the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies and have the closest working relationship with Microsoft. Shire has met the program's requirements due to its high levels of customer satisfaction, employee certification and attained Microsoft competencies. Shire will now receive a rich set of benefits from Microsoft, including elite training and support. This will enable us to further enhance our software products and levels of customer service.
Going green in the Falklands
June 2007
Congratulation to FrontLine user the Falklands Island Government on the
commissioning the Stanley wind farm at Sand Bay. Three 50m high units will
have a capacity of almost one megawatt and provide 20% of the islands’
power – reducing the dependence on diesel imported from the UK.
FrontLine is chosen to help maintain Eden
May 2007. The Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, delights the imagination and is a truly awe-inspiring initiative. Its splendid mission is “to promote the understanding and responsible management of the vital relationship between plants, people and resources leading towards a sustainable future for all”. www.edenproject.com. Eden receives over one and a quarter million visitors a year, but countless more millions around the world will have glimpsed the inside of its huge Biodomes in the James Bond film ‘Die Another Day'. Maintaining the site, its sophisticated computer-controlled heating and ventilation systems and all the ancillary plant and equipment is no mean feat. Shire is very proud that the Eden maintenance team chose FrontLine to help them in their task.
Shire is 25!
March 2007. In 1982: Argentina invaded the Falklands; Italy won the World Cup; Microsoft was the new kid on the block and Shire Systems was born. 25 years young in 2007, Shire will be celebrating throughout the year. Whilst Shire is as old as the industry, the Shire team is fresh and vibrant - and relishing the ongoing trip towards the big 50.
We thank all professionals for your loyal support over the past quarter century. We owe our success entirely to your ongoing endorsement of our products and services. Your discerning requests and helpful feedback from the ferment of the workplace have shaped our products and will continue to do so.
Shire will be exhibiting at Maintec 2007 – the UK's premier event for maintenance managers
February 2007. Come and take a look at any or all of our software applications - FrontLine, Safety 1st, Food Sentinel™ and also get a sneak preview of FrontLine 3 and Shire OEE. See us on stand D41 - and pick up a piece of our 25th anniversary cake!
Congratulations to Mowlem's construction and commissioning team on the opening of the Dublin Port Tunnel to traffic
January 2007. Opened on 20th December 2006 by Ireland's An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, the Capital's tunnel is Ireland's largest ever roads infrastructure investment. FrontLine was chosen as the preferred maintenance management system to help manage its complex equipment. The FrontLine CMMS is connected to the tunnel's extensive SCADA system by a special Shire interface to enable automatic corrective maintenance work orders and usage-based PM – read about the benefits of this approach here.
Congratulations to FrontLine-user Vitacress for being crowned Best Factory at the 2006 UK Factory Awards ceremony
November 2006. Our special congratulations also go to Paul Walsham, Vitacress' Engineering Manager, and his team. Behind every manufacturing success there can always be found a dedicated and doggedly determined team of maintenance professionals working in the background to make things possible! Read about the Vitacress success here.
In response to customer requests we have introduced the Shire Barcode Pack
October 2006. The pack provides a simple means of adding professional-quality barcode labels to your assets, stock codes and bin locations, allowing you to reap the benefits of barcodes in terms of data accuracy and time saving.
There is no need for a specialised barcode printer – simply load your standard laser printer with the labels provided and print direct from your Shire system. Read more about the Shire Barcode Pack here.
Shire welcomes Aston Martin to the community of FrontLine users
September 2006. Petrolheads at Shire couldn't contain their excitement when Aston Martin joined the FrontLine user community. Some brand names just have that emotional kudos! With tongue in cheek, a mischievous member of the Sales Team asked a Development colleague when the Italian version of FrontLine would be available. By the way, did you know that sales of Astons have now overtaken sales of Ferraris? Vroom, vroom!
Congratulations to Polestar on the successful commissioning of the UK's largest ever printing industry investment project
March 2005. Committed FrontLine user Polestar commissioned the first press in their brand new £100m gravure facility at Sheffield. FrontLine is being used to control both operator and engineering maintenance. Read about the Polestar success here
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