How automation downtime risk quietly accumulates across engineering, operations, IT, and finance.
This perspective is written for engineering managers, controls engineers, operations leaders, IT teams, and those responsible for managing operational risk in FMCG production.
January often brings a sense of stability in FMCG production.
Lines are running.
Targets are being met.
There are no immediate incidents demanding attention.
When questions arise around software, access, resilience, or support, the response is frequently the same:
“It’s been fine so far.”
In many cases, that is accurate.
It is also where automation downtime risk tends to accumulate quietly.
This is not a people issue. It is a structural one.
In most FMCG environments, accountability for automation and control systems is distributed across multiple functions:
- Engineering and controls teams are responsible for keeping production running
- Operations focuses on throughput and performance
- IT governs access, security, and infrastructure
- Finance and senior leadership carry risk once it becomes visible as a cost
Each function is acting appropriately within its remit.
The challenge is that automation risk does not sit neatly within any single role.
It exists in the spaces between them.
As a result, risk is often tolerated by default rather than managed by design.
How automation downtime risk develops without being noticed
Most significant automation incidents do not begin with a technical failure.
They begin with assumptions:
- that software versions are known, current, and recoverable
- that access will be available when required
- that critical knowledge exists in more than one place
- that support will be accessible during abnormal hours
In practical terms, automation downtime risk is not just the risk of equipment failure.
It is the risk of being unable to access, understand, recover, or support control systems when pressure is highest.
Under normal operating conditions, these assumptions often hold.
When they fail, they tend to fail:
- during downtime,
- outside core hours,
- with production stopped,
- and with decisions being made quickly rather than deliberately.
Why escalation is difficult in FMCG environments
From an operational perspective, raising concerns when systems are running normally can be challenging.
There is no visible incident.
No immediate production impact.
No failure that clearly justifies intervention.
From a senior leadership or finance perspective, the response is equally reasonable:
“If nothing has gone wrong yet, why invest now?”
The difficulty is that automation downtime risk only becomes visible after the cost has already been incurred.
By the time it appears on a report, the decision has effectively already been made — simply under urgency rather than control.
The cost extends beyond lost production
When failures occur, the impact is rarely limited to downtime alone.
It typically includes:
- increased stress on technical teams
- emergency decision-making
- reliance on external call-outs
- temporary fixes becoming permanent workarounds
- repeated incidents are treated as isolated events
Much of this cost is absorbed operationally rather than financially, which makes it easy to underestimate and expensive to repeat.
A more productive leadership question
Rather than asking:
“What happens if something goes wrong?”
A more useful question is:
“How exposed are we when it does?”
This reframes the discussion from reaction to preparedness and allows engineering, operations, IT, and finance to align around shared exposure rather than isolated responsibilities.
Resilience in FMCG automation is built quietly
The most resilient production environments are rarely those that react fastest.
They are those who invest steadily in:
- clarity of ownership around software and systems
- access that works when required
- shared understanding across technical and operational teams
- support structures designed for real-world conditions
This work is rarely visible during normal operations.
Its value is realised when pressure arrives.
Closing thought
“It’s been fine so far” is not an unreasonable position.
However, resilience in FMCG automation is not proven on good days.
It is proven when assumptions are tested.
Organisations that perform best under pressure are typically those that reduced their exposure long before it demanded attention.
