Case Study: Co-operative Group achieves 5% maintenance spend savings and 99.8% asset availability with Accruent vx Maintain and vx Observe

How Co-op used IoT remote monitoring and better asset management to automate decision making, improve efficiency and boost customer satisfaction

The Co-operative Group (Co-op) is one of the world’s largest consumer co-operatives and the UK’s sixth biggest food retailer, operating more than 2,500 stores alongside funeral, insurance and legal services. Faced with an inefficient, fragmented maintenance model—preventive work split across four providers, 11 separate compliance systems, bundled invoicing that obscured costs, and manual refrigeration monitoring that wasted staff time and led to food spoilage—the Co-op could not match competitor standards or cost models.

Co-op implemented Accruent’s vx Maintain and vx Observe to move from time-based to condition-based maintenance, enable automatic fault-raising and remote refrigeration monitoring, and centralize asset data across 600,000 items. The solution freed store colleagues’ time (about 20% of jobs are now raised automatically), improved decision-making, and delivered measurable benefits: 95%+ PPM compliance certainty, 33% fewer service providers, 5% savings in maintenance spend, reduced food waste, and 99.8% asset availability.

Co-operative Group

Ed James

Central Services Performance Manager