CASE STUDY - FIVES MAINTENANCE

How a machine manufacturer structured its commissioning process and spare parts provision.

Fives Liné Machines entrusted Fives Maintenance with organising the commissioning phase and determining the initial spare parts provision for a strategic industrial project backed by an equipment availability commitment.

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Client

Fives Liné Machines: manufacturer of industrial machines and production lines

Sector

Industrial machinery manufacturing / OEM

Scope of work

Commissioning and spare parts provisioning

Assignment duration

Two weeks of assessment and planning, with a commissioning plan covering two years

About FIVES LINÉ MACHINES

Fives Liné Machines designs and manufactures machines and production lines for the manufacturing industry. The company delivers projects involving a high level of technical integration, combining several subsystems within a single manufacturing cell.

In 2024–2025, Fives Liné Machines secured a multimillion-euro project from a major industrial customer: a complex cell combining a machining centre, a turnover system, an inspection system and a shuttle system connecting the subsystems. The contract includes a guaranteed equipment availability rate throughout the warranty period, making part of the manufacturer’s contractual risk dependent on its ability to keep the installation operational.

Challenge
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Two blind spots threatened the availability commitment, neither of which fell within a machine manufacturer’s core expertise.

1/ Commissioning was carried out effectively on the shop floor, but relied on unwritten knowledge spread across several departments: electrical engineering and automation, mechanical engineering, project management, and operations/assembly. Each had its own schedule and working practices, with no shared overview or common checkpoints.

2/ Spare parts provision was determined using a binary criterion inherited from the manufacturer’s approach: “Will the machine stop if this part fails?” This classified nearly 80% of part references as critical, resulting in costly overprovisioning, far removed from the standards applied by maintenance specialists.

Fives Liné Machines was familiar with Fives Maintenance’s methodology and chose to apply it beyond maintenance service delivery: the aim was to bring this expertise into the manufacturer’s own operations, focusing on these two specific issues.

Solution
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Our approach

Fives Maintenance worked directly within Fives Liné Machines’ teams, delivering the assignment in three successive stages.

1. Assess how the project was actually organised

An initial week on site provided an understanding of how each department involved in the project actually operated—engineering, mechanical engineering, project management and operations—and enabled the collection of documents already produced by each team. The assessment revealed a siloed organisation: commissioning was generally handled well, but relied on informal responsibilities and verbal handovers, with no central workspace or cross-functional overview of milestones.

2. Develop a reusable commissioning plan

The second week focused on building a formal commissioning plan, defining milestones, deadlines, responsibilities and checkpoints, from order receipt through to installation at the customer’s site. Fives Maintenance went beyond machine start-up alone, also covering management of the two-year warranty period and maintenance recommendations for the installation once in operation. The plan was designed for reuse on subsequent projects, with a central document repository and dashboards shared across departments.

3. Reassess spare parts criticality using FMECA

The initial binary criterion was replaced by a multicriteria criticality assessment based on FMECA—Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis—considering failure effects, detectability and likelihood of occurrence. The revised ratings were reviewed in workshops directly with Fives Liné Machines’ teams: the manufacturer’s practical expertise informed the analysis, while the methodology provided a framework for prioritisation. The resulting spare parts provision was narrowed down to the parts that genuinely determine the installation’s availability, without compromising the contractual commitment.

The methodology was applied using the tools already in place at Fives Liné Machines. It is intended to be incorporated into the manufacturer’s CMMS or ERP when these systems are deployed, improving traceability. The software supports, rather than replaces, the methodology and practical expertise.

Results
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Testimonial

« We were familiar with Fives Maintenance’s methodology and decided to build on this expertise. The idea was to apply this knowledge at the manufacturer level, rather than limiting it to maintenance service delivery. »

Adrien Roubennes
CEO, Fives Liné Machines

-60 %
in the purchase cost of the initial spare parts provision

80 % → 30 %
of references classified as critical following reassessment (share of the initial budget)

10 à 20 %
expected efficiency improvement during on-site reassembly

2 years
covered by the commissioning plan, through to the end of the warranty period

Beyond the figures, Fives Liné Machines now has a standardised methodology—a commissioning plan and a spare parts criticality matrix—that can be reused on future projects. A continuous improvement loop captures deviations, documents them and feeds the lessons learned into the next project.