Case Study: The Co-Operative Bank

The Co-operative Bank operates a network of data centres supporting 24/7 banking operations. With equipment reliability central to business continuity, the bank sought a smarter, more proactive way to detect and respond to asset performance issues — particularly around known failure-prone systems.

The challenge

With critical infrastructure spread across seven UK data centres, the bank needed real-time visibility of asset condition and early warning of failure risks. The aim was to reduce downtime, eliminate unnecessary 24/7 engineering presence, and strengthen maintenance decision-making — all without disrupting daily operations.

The solution

Otoni (formerly Asset Handling) deployed a live condition monitoring solution tailored to the bank’s risk profile. The project included:

• Installation of 40 monitoring units across key assets
• Identification of 21 single points of failure, enabling focused action
• Development of a mobile interface for on-the-go engineer access
• Creation of 320 new maintenance regimes, driven by real asset behaviour
• Integration of live telemetry, capturing vibration, temperature, power, and acoustic signals
• Real-time alerting, enabling fast response to anomalies
• Critical spare parts identified, improving fault response capability

During the trial phase, the system successfully detected a pending failure — confirming its ability to prevent costly downtime before it happened.

Results and impact

The Co-operative Bank gained:

• Live asset data across all monitored sites
• Clear visibility of current condition and performance trends
• Reduced reliance on routine checks and emergency callouts
• Lower operational costs and improved uptime
• Risk mitigation across failure-prone equipment
• More targeted maintenance and smarter resource use

“We have deployed this advance in monitoring and alerting technology upon our ‘Achilles heels’ of deteriorating or fail-prone plant. We’ve already been the beneficiary of its enhanced ability to detect a change in the plant’s operating characteristic and prevented unplanned mission-critical downtime as a result.”

Micky Burke, Data Centre Manager, The Co-operative Group

The project was recognised for its innovation and impact, reaching the finals of both the BIFM and PFM industry awards.