Feature Enclosures
enclosure. Therefore, to succeed the supplier must be able to provide a comprehensive customising service, often to tight deadlines. From a simple hole for a cable gland or push- button to highly complex milling, corporate colours and graphics, inter- nal bracketry and fixings, all these and much more are now the norm in the decision process of design and R&D engineers.
A major influence in the ‘value chain’ of OEM companies is their marketing department. Today, the aesthetics of an enclosure solution have never been so important. Many companies manufacture families of products and being able to standard- ise on a single enclosure design in various sizes is of great importance. So to succeed, enclosure suppliers must be able to satisfy this require- ment from their standard product portfolio. Variety of choice is key.
Bespoke solutions Of course Murphy’s Law dictates that however many options are available, there will always be a requirement which cannot be fulfilled from a stan- dard range. By using modern tooling techniques a few enclosure compa- nies offer the possibility of develop- ing bespoke enclosure solutions which are viable in terms of cost and delivery lead times. Two key factors taken into account by the specifiers’ ‘value chain’ relate to their production process. Many companies operate a JIT system - therefore confidence in their suppli- ers’ ability to deliver is crucial. Running alongside this is the issue of quality. Modern injection moulding techniques virtually guarantee conti- nuity in the quality of the products being produced. A couple of manu- facturers even use robots to inject molten gasket material into their enclosures to guarantee consistent quality. The result of all of this is no disruption to the client’s production due to
QA rejections.
As with many other areas of the electrical and electronics manufac- turing industry, the enclosures sector has not been spared from the insur- gence of copycat products from the Far East. However, looks, and more importantly promises, can be decep- tive. The old adage of ‘you get what you pay for’ undoubtedly pertains, but as previously explained, there is so much more to specifying a fit for purpose enclosure than just asking for the box.
Below: FIBOX’s Customised Enclosure Range
The future
So what does the future hold for the UK thermoplastic enclosure indus- try? Well, only those manufacturers that are ready willing and able to invest heavily in market driven product development, state of the art production technology, local in- depth stocks and employee develop- ment will be equipped to offer the sort of first class customer service being demanded by the market. And as a consequence, only these manu- facturers will prosper.
In addition, let us not ignore the importance that quality distribution plays in the strategy of leading enclosure manufacturers. Reliance on local stock and trained sales per- sonnel is crucial to the future of the industry and once again, only those producers willing to invest quality time and resources in maintaining a proactive distributor network will be able to serve the diverse enclo- sure buying market.
FIBOX
www.fibox.co.uk T: 01642 604 400
Enter 203
IT INFRASTRUCTURE Enter 13
SOFTWARE & SERVICES
www.rittal.co.uk
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