Case study · Multi-site food manufacturing

Hundreds of inspection reports. No view of asset condition. And the audit is coming.

How a food manufacturer moved from a pile of scattered reports to a reliable, steerable view of its asset integrity. A read for maintenance, methods, quality and technical-management leaders.

Sector: food manufacturingMulti-siteAnonymised situationVerified regulatory framework

Food-manufacturing industrial equipment: piping, pressure vessels and instrumentation

Quality and maintenance team reviewing an inspection report on site

The essentials in 30 seconds

The problem is not a lack of checks. It is that their results never become a usable view of the asset base.

An industrial site accumulates hundreds of inspections a year, carried out by dozens of contractors, in as many formats.
These reports are paid for then archived, rarely linked to the equipment they describe. The per-asset history exists nowhere.
Consequences: blind decisions, regulatory blind spots, last-minute audits, breakdowns whose warning sign was asleep in a PDF.
The real challenge: turning this pile of documents into asset intelligence, a reliable, dated and traceable condition of every piece of equipment over time.
This is the capability an Asset Integrity Intelligence platform like Integrity Loop brings: steer, anticipate, prove.

Two lived scenes

Situation 1 · Heat exchanger

6:12 am

An unusual noise on line 3. Nobody dwells on it : the shift changes ten minutes later.

6:40 am

The equipment stops dead. Production stops with it. Every hour of downtime costs several thousand euros.

9:15 am

The maintenance manager looks for the heat exchanger's history. Nothing in the CMMS. The paper archives have to be reopened.

11:30 am

The report turns up : an inspection paid for two years earlier already flagged local corrosion to watch.

The data existed. Nobody ever looked at it again. This is not a checking problem : it is a memory problem.

Situation 2 · Sterile tank

2:20 pm

During a clean-in-place (CIP) cycle, a mixer blade shows a worn patch on its coating. Nothing is logged.

6 weeks later

A batch is put on hold : the outgoing bacteriological control reveals unexpected contamination.

The investigation

The worn blade is identified : a micro-defect in the coating created a niche where a biofilm could grow, invisible to the eye.

The finding

The wear was noted on an inspection report... but never linked to this specific tank's history.

Once again, the data existed. It just wasn't connected to the asset it concerned.

Situations observed across several sites

The vocabulary, set out clearly

Asset integrity: what are we talking about?

Before talking about a tool, we need to share the same definitions. These are the concepts every industrial asset manager works with, often without naming them.

Asset integrity (Asset Integrity)

The ability of a piece of equipment to operate safely and at the expected performance throughout its life. Managing it means knowing the real condition of every asset over time.

Asset integrity management (Asset Integrity Management)

The set of methods that guarantee this ability: planned inspections, degradation tracking, an up-to-date register, repair or replacement decisions grounded in data.

Asset intelligence (Asset Integrity Intelligence)

The stage where scattered inspections become decision-ready information: history rebuilt per asset, health index, anticipated due dates, prioritised risks. This is the positioning of Integrity Loop.

Mechanical integrity (Mechanical Integrity)

The area covering pressure equipment, piping and vessels: thicknesses, corrosion, remaining life, consistency with the inspection codes (API 510, 570, 653).

Risk-based inspection (Risk-Based Inspection, RBI)

An approach that prioritises inspections by the risk of each piece of equipment, probability of failure crossed with consequence, rather than on a uniform schedule (API 580, 581).

Remaining life (Remaining Life Assessment)

The estimate of the time before a piece of equipment reaches its usable limit, calculated from the measured degradation rate, typically corrosion tracked by thickness measurements (UT).

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01 · Context and problem

The checks are done. The asset base, though, is not under control.

A multi-site food manufacturer, several processing plants. Each site holds a fleet of technical, regulated equipment, part of which falls under the in-service monitoring of pressure equipment (French Order of 20 November 2017).

Steam generators, autoclaves, heat exchangers, pressure vessels, steam piping, silos, filtration lines.
Checks outsourced: several dozen contractors per group, approved pressure-equipment inspection bodies, inspection firms, non-destructive testing (NDT) subcontractors.
Each delivers its findings in its own format, PDF, scan or in-house template, with no common structure.

The inspections are carried out, and paid for. But several hundred reports a year per site arrive as a fragmented stream, archived at group level with no indexing by asset.

Yet the regulations require the opposite: asset-by-asset tracking, with an operating file and a dated register (Article 6 of the Order of 20/11/2017). The data exists, but it lies dormant: the real condition of a piece of equipment cannot be produced in a few minutes. Across multiple sites, without consolidation, decisions rest on estimates. The risk of unplanned downtime and extra cost rises, silently.

What is really at stake

Five risks carried by an unsteered asset base.

Safety
A pressure item whose degradation goes unnoticed puts people and the production line at risk.
Regulatory compliance
In-service monitoring of pressure equipment requires an operating file and a dated register per asset. A lack of traceability is a non-conformity.
Quality audit
IFS Food and BRCGS require a documented maintenance programme and records. Without a consolidated history, the evidence is missing.
Cost of downtime
An unplanned stoppage costs in lost production, emergency repairs and a knock-on effect on deliveries.
Investment decisions
Without a real view of the asset base, extending or replacing a piece of equipment is decided by guesswork. So often badly.

Equipment covered

The asset families tracked across this base.

Pressure equipment Storage tanks & vessels Piping systems Heat exchangers Steam systems Spray dryers Autoclaves Filtration systems Sterile tanks Silos & hoppers

Beyond food manufacturing: Integrity Loop can cover practically any static asset base on an industrial site.

Food manufacturingPharmaceuticalChemicalsPetrochemicalsCosmeticsBiotechnologyEnergyWater & wastewater treatmentPulp & paperCementMetallurgy

Before / after Integrity Loop

The same asset base, two realities.

Before

Reports scattered, by contractor and by format
No consolidated history per piece of equipment
Real condition of the asset base unknown, blind decisions
Audit prepared at the last minute, digging through archives

After

Each report attached to its equipment
History rebuilt, dated, traceable
Health index and due dates under control
Audit file in one click, source to hand

03 · The response

An Asset Integrity Intelligence platform, installed on your premises.

The group deployed Integrity Loop across its sites and uploaded its entire body of inspection reports into the platform, several hundred documents accumulated over several years. Within weeks, it had a precise, asset-by-asset view of its equipment base, rebuilt from those existing inspections.

Installed on-premise, with no cloud, the platform reads existing reports, extracts the facts, sorts them by asset and rebuilds the history of each piece of equipment. From this it derives health indicators, due dates and priorities.

Precision is non-negotiable: the AI extracts facts as written, deterministic formulas calculate the indicators, and every figure stays traceable back to its source document. This is what makes the indicators defensible before an auditor.

Thousands of scattered technical documents become a complete, reliable and usable view of the industrial asset base. This is the central benefit: a decision-making capability, not a feature.

100%

of reports attached to an asset

History

complete, per equipment

Due dates

for inspections, under control

Health index

per asset, from 0 to 100

Blind spots

assets with no report, detected

Audit file

available in one click

Integrity Loop dashboard: asset-base condition, safety indicators, open findings over time, condition breakdown and findings by equipment

Real screenshot: the asset-base condition dashboard in Integrity Loop

This dashboard could show your asset base.

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The journey of a report

From a PDF received to an asset under control.

Missing or inconsistent data is never guessed: it is flagged 'to verify' and escalated for review.

Asset history

One piece of equipment, all its technical memory.

This is where corrosion becomes readable: as a series, not report by report. Three thickness measurements are enough to estimate a degradation rate and a remaining life.

Heat exchanger E-11Thickness monitoring (UT)

03/2019UT inspection , measured thickness 8.2 mm

05/2021UT inspection , thickness 7.4 mm

04/2023UT inspection , thickness 6.9 mm, local corrosion reported

Corrosion rate and remaining life calculated over the series; next inspection derived by the half-interval rule (API 570 style). Without a minimum thickness recorded, the calculation displays 'insufficient data'.

Illustrative example

A strong argument at audit time

Overlay inspections, see how defects evolve.

Every defect is positioned on the equipment. From one visit to the next, the map overlays: a defect that's growing, a new one, a zone that's stable. Especially telling on large surfaces: tanks, spray dryers, cyclones, silos, sterile tanks.

Integrity Loop defect map positioned on a piece of equipment, overlayable across inspection visits

Real screenshot: an equipment's defect map, overlayable across visits.

The decision indicators

What you steer, at asset, site and group level.

Completion rate of inspections due

Due dates met divided by due dates owed, per site. The direct indicator of regulatory exposure, demonstrable in an audit.

Upcoming inspection load (next 6 months)

Regulatory due dates per month over the next six months, plus the next due date per asset, to anticipate the peaks instead of enduring them.

Asset health index (0 to 100)

A composite score per asset combining surface, structural and hygiene defects, with a 12-month trend. An asset with no crack can still be rated very poor on its structure.

Remaining life and corrosion rate

Calculated over the thickness time series (UT measurements). Shown as 'insufficient data', never estimated, when the series is missing.

Open anomalies by severity

Unresolved non-conformities and the breakdown of verdicts, approved, with reservations or not repaired, to stop a defect repaired with reservations being treated as closed.

Blind spots in the asset base

Assets with no report for longer than the planned interval. The missing check becomes visible and quantified, per site and per group.

Report availability for audit

For each asset and each due date, the source record attached, openable and printable. The chain of fact, formula, synthesis makes every indicator defensible.

Integrity Loop indicator library: choosing which safety, repair and due-date indicators appear on the dashboard

Real screenshot: every indicator shown is configurable, nothing is forced on you.

Comparison

Why neither a spreadsheet, nor a document manager, nor an EAM is enough.

Each existing tool solves part of the problem. None rebuilds the integrity of the asset base from the reports. It is a category of its own.

Centralise the reports

Spreadsheets, SharePointPartial

Document management (DMS)Yes

EAM, CMMSPartial

Asset Integrity IntelligenceYes

Attach each report to the asset

Spreadsheets, SharePointManual

Document management (DMS)No

EAM, CMMSIf entered

Asset Integrity IntelligenceAutomatic

Rebuild the per-equipment history

Spreadsheets, SharePointNo

Document management (DMS)No

EAM, CMMSPartial

Asset Integrity IntelligenceYes

Health index and remaining life

Spreadsheets, SharePointNo

Document management (DMS)No

EAM, CMMSNo

Asset Integrity IntelligenceYes

Detect assets with no check

Spreadsheets, SharePointNo

Document management (DMS)No

EAM, CMMSPartial

Asset Integrity IntelligenceYes

Traced audit file, source to hand

Spreadsheets, SharePointManual

Document management (DMS)Manual

EAM, CMMSPartial

Asset Integrity IntelligenceIn one click

On-premise processing, no cloud

Spreadsheets, SharePointDepends on setup

Document management (DMS)Depends on setup

EAM, CMMSDepends on setup

Asset Integrity IntelligenceYes

What the field teaches

Steering your asset integrity well, with or without software.

Best practices

Keep a register per asset, not per contractor or per year.
Index each report to its equipment on receipt, not the day before the audit.
Track due dates on a rolling six-month view, to anticipate the peaks.
Keep the source document linked to each indicator, to make it defensible.
Prioritise inspections by risk (RBI), not by a uniform schedule.
Date thickness measurements to calculate remaining life.

Common mistakes

Archiving reports at group level, with no indexing by asset.
Treating the audit as a one-off project rather than a permanent state.
Treating a defect 'repaired with reservations' as closed.
Trusting a figure without being able to trace it back to its source.
Guessing a missing value instead of flagging it to verify.
Confusing 'checks completed' with 'asset base under control'.

What you gain, concretely

An asset base under control, audits prepared, decisions well-founded.

Search time cut down

A piece of equipment's history, which used to take hours to rebuild by hand, opens in seconds.

Costs avoided

Fewer unplanned stoppages: the degradation signal is caught before the breakdown, not after.

Audits without the stress

The compliance file is ready continuously: no more last-minute scramble before IFS or BRCGS.

Prioritised visibility, at every level

Group, site, workshop: each manager sees what matters to them, and knows what to tackle first.

An asset base like this one, with AI steering it for you.

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Limits & reliability

What the platform does, and what it does not.

The indicators are only as good as the reports supplied. Integrity Loop extracts facts as written and never guesses. Any missing information is flagged 'to verify'; any inconsistency (contradictory measurements, unidentified asset, duplicate) is escalated for human review.

When a series of measurements is insufficient, the system displays 'insufficient data' rather than producing an unfounded figure. It structures, calculates and alerts. It replaces neither the reliability of the source, nor the judgement of the expert, nor the checks carried out by the approved bodies.

Compliance framework, verified and sourced

The texts and standards that govern asset monitoring.

French Order of 20 November 2017 (in-service monitoring of pressure equipment)

The reference text in force since 1 January 2018 (JORFTEXT000036128632), an implementing text for Articles R.557-14-1 and following of the Environment Code. It consolidates requirements previously spread across many separate orders.

Pressure-equipment intervals (inspection and requalification)

Periodic inspection every 4 years maximum, reduced to 2 years for steam generators and autoclaves; requalification every 10 years, reduced to 6 years for toxic or corrosive fluids. Default values may be adjusted by a recognised inspection plan, to be checked asset by asset.

Article 6 of the Order of 20/11/2017 (LEGIARTI000036131075)

An operating file with a dated register of all operations and an up-to-date list of equipment; certificates kept for at least the maximum period between two requalifications, other documents for the life of the equipment.

API inspection codes 510, 570, 653

International reference codes for in-service inspection: API 510 for pressure vessels, API 570 for piping, API 653 for storage tanks. They serve as a benchmark for interval and remaining-life rules.

Risk-based inspection (API 580 / 581)

A recognised methodology for prioritising inspections by risk. Fed by a reliable per-asset history, it allows more frequent inspection of what warrants it, and less of what does not.

Non-destructive testing (NDT), COFREND certification (EN ISO 9712)

Non-destructive examinations carried out by agents certified across three levels, by method, with certification renewed every 5 years.

IFS Food version 8

A private, GFSI-recognised standard, required for audits since 1 January 2024. Chapter 4.16 Maintenance, 4.17 Equipment, 4.18 Traceability. Not a legal obligation.

BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9

A private, GFSI-recognised standard, audits since 1 February 2023. Clause 4.7 Maintenance: a documented planned-maintenance programme covering facilities and equipment, with records. Not a law.

ISO 55001:2024 (asset management)

The edition in force, replacing ISO 55001:2014. A certifiable but voluntary asset-management system standard; the organisation itself defines the scope covered.

GDPR, Regulation (EU) 2016/679

Applies even in an on-premise deployment as soon as personal data is processed. The operating group is the data controller; the local software vendor that does not access the data is not a processor, but any support access must be governed (Article 28).

Frequently asked questions

What manufacturers ask before deciding.

What is asset integrity management software?

It is software that rebuilds and maintains the real condition of every piece of equipment over time, from inspections. It goes further than document storage: it links each report to an asset, calculates health indicators and makes the asset base steerable and auditable.

How is it different from a CMMS or an EAM?

A CMMS manages work orders and day-to-day maintenance. It does not read inspection reports or rebuild the integrity of the asset base. Integrity Loop focuses on the work management suites do not do, and sits alongside an EAM already in place.

Does Integrity Loop replace my inspection body?

No. Your inspection bodies carry out the checks. Integrity Loop reads their reports, structures them and tracks them over time. It does not perform the inspection: it becomes its memory and its steering.

What equipment can be tracked?

Pressure equipment, steam generators, autoclaves, heat exchangers, vessels and tanks, piping, silos and hoppers, filters, drying towers. In short, any equipment subject to periodic inspections.

How is remaining life calculated?

From the dated series of thickness measurements (UT): the corrosion rate is derived from the trend, then the remaining life down to the minimum allowable thickness. Without a sufficient series, the system displays 'insufficient data' rather than an unfounded figure.

Is risk-based inspection (RBI) supported?

Yes, upstream: by making the condition and trend of every asset visible, the platform provides the raw material for an RBI approach (API 580/581), to inspect more often what warrants it.

Does my data go to the cloud?

No. The database and the reports stay on-premise, on your workstation or your network, with time-stamped backups. No inspection data leaves for the cloud.

How does the platform help prepare an IFS or BRCGS audit?

For each asset it brings together the history, the due dates and the source reports, and makes the audit file available in one click. The evidence is built continuously, not reconstructed at the last minute.

What happens if a report is incomplete or unreadable?

Missing data is flagged 'to verify', never guessed. An inconsistency is escalated for human review. Reliability comes before apparent completeness.

How long to get a first view of the asset base?

Importing and reading a first batch of reports is immediate. A new format needs a short calibration on your real documents. The first consolidated view arrives as soon as that first batch is processed.

Your asset base deserves to be under control, not in the archives.

Get a diagnosis of your asset base and a demonstration of Integrity Loop on your own reports.

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