In challenging economic times, the pressure to lower costs quickly can lead to some poor decisions on the part of operational planners within their respective industries. It’s easy to get lost in the details of a particular business function when you’re trying to wring the absolute best out of an area of operations.
While those kinds of in-depth exercises can yield good results, they can fall short in producing the types of savings that are — in the current climate — the difference between the business being on the verge of calamity and one that’s on solid footing for 2023 and beyond. However, the workload and limited resources placed on decision-makers in engineering and manufacturing companies means that a strategic, objective view of operations is borderline impossible to achieve. Yet, it’s that view that’s necessary to make meaningful changes across a company.
A Short Lesson
When a company starts out, its organic growth is dictated by a lot of decisions based on the needs of the moment. From suppliers to OEM agreements made, down to the production practices established, these choices may have been made as and when capabilities and capacity grew. Over time, needs change as a company grows, but the hinderances of decisions made at a different time can persist.
Of course, there’s also personnel to consider. Each company has its stalwarts, the ones who have been with the business since the early days: people with expertise and experience ingrained into their work and contributions. They can think and plan more strategically, combining their knowledge and skills to the benefit of the business. An organisation looking to maximise these individuals’ potential needs to ask themselves how it can refocus these top performers into where they will bring even greater value to the enterprise.
The R-Word
A reactive MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) approach ensures that your best people assets are submerged in operational detail. But in a technologically advanced age, remediation of all types, from shutdown maintenance to non-routine repairs, can be transformed from reactive to proactive, predictive sets of processes. By leveraging expertise and technologically driven support from choice partners, industrial outfits can get off the back foot at any stage in their growth cycles.
Source: Rubix
Of course, there’s no single silver bullet that a company can use to cure its problems and suddenly transform repair and overhaul systems so it quickly becomes predictable and preemptive. It takes a partner with access to a raft of skills, platforms, expertise and with significant consultative weight to make the big differences in how a business might run in the future.
The Three P’s
MRO, or overhaul, depending on your viewpoint, need to exhibit the three P’s of being planned, predictive and preventative. That makes operations and your company’s in-house experts proactive and able to transition to their more naturally suited strategic roles.
The Rubix Group is Europe’s biggest company entirely focused on businesses like yours. Instead of being an add-on to one of the household name outsourcing or accountancy firms, Rubix has always been dedicated to industry. Its people are as well-versed in the daily operations of manufacturing and engineering as your own. Rubix’s Insite programme, for example, places people on your premises full-time, advising on processes, designing, and building new automations, systems and facilities that will improve your overall operations out of all recognition.
Understandably, not every company will want to jump feet first into any new partnership. Consequently, Rubix’s capabilities can be leveraged as and how required individually on a case-by-case basis. For instance, Rubix helps organisations find viable and cost-effective alternatives to expensive, legacy OEM supply chains, helping the entire facility consolidate its spare parts and necessary equipment. With its multi-billion Euro turnover, Rubix helps its clients access better pricing and terms from a variety of options thanks to its worldwide range.
Reactive procurement policies can be turned around into proactive e-procurement that’s instigated anywhere, from the shop floor on a tablet to a back-office workstation. Then, stores management procedures and technologies can be overhauled by deep data analysis that helps identify stocked spares gathering dust and those parts that need to be constantly at hand. It’s all in the data, it just needs objectivity and the means to surface insights.
Integration is Key
The best deployments of people and systems are always devised with existing processes and preferences in mind. In technology terms, the Rubix solutions will sit alongside your existing ERP or industrial control systems, communicating via safe integrations to leverage better value from an existing technology stack.
Likewise, Rubix’s experts integrate with your best people, designing new automations and systems to free up your key decision-makers from fighting fires. Now, your best people can be put to their best uses.
The Rubix Group’s capabilities are there for your use, according to your needs, whether it’s a predictive maintenance schedule or a new production line or plant.
To learn more about how this European specialist is helping companies like yours weather the storm of economic turmoil, check back here in a few weeks for a look at some relevant case studies. Or, if what you’ve read so far is of interest, get in touch in the first instance with specialists who can speak your language.
10 April 2024
