opinion
AMHSA opinion l
Service takes will and skill
In this month’s article in the series from members of the Automated Material Handling Systems Association (AMHSA), Ebb Kretschmer, Head of Customer Services for KNAPP UK Ltd, argues that providing first-class customer support requires both will and skill.
H
andling equipment suppliers use a variety of names for their aftermarket activities including aftersales,
maintenance and service. Whichever term is used, it is undoubtedly true that pure ‘maintenance’ – keeping the system just as it was supplied – is simply not enough in today’s business world.
I believe that – in every industry – there are two key facets to the customer service commitment, which can be abbreviated to ‘will’ and ‘skill’. In the logistics sector, the will is the desire to improve and adapt the material handling system to suit the customer’s changing needs. For aftersales support to be truly effective, this will has to be shared by both the system supplier and the customer. Secondly, there is the skill, by which I mean the physical ability to convert the will into action. This, of course, relies heavily on the pool of skills available, which is currently insufficient in the UK handling sector, as in many other sectors.
Service improvements
Customer support technicians need to do much more than just maintain the equipment at their specific site at its contracted throughput. To ensure long and fruitful relationships with customers, automated material handling system suppliers require these staff to be constantly exploring ways to modify or upgrade the solutions to make them work more effectively for the customer’s current business model and future requirements.
Take, for example, the handling
system supplied to British Gas in Leicester. This 12,800m2
warehouse
provides next-day delivery of replacement parts, tools and consumables for the company’s 10,000 service engineers who serve over 4.5 million British Gas customers across the UK. With support from KNAPP to modify the system over the past few years, British Gas has been able to shift the cut-off time by which a field engineer must order a replacement part from the distribution centre for next-day delivery from 6pm to 8pm (7pm for Scotland), facilitating a dramatic improvement in the service levels provided by British Gas to its customers.
If both the automation supplier and the client have the will, significant improvements can be implemented, in increments, to ensure that the handling system meets the customer’s business needs.
Skills shortage
Today’s handling system suppliers require a considerable amount of skilled labour to meet their customers’ service needs. For example, KNAPP now has service contracts at the sites of five major clients in the UK and employs some 80 technicians just at these five sites. To be effective, the will to improve requires the skills to implement the necessary changes. A shortage of technicians – whether they are employed by the supplier or the customer – can inhibit this vital process. In order to ensure that they have sufficient skilled service staff, automation suppliers are having to be proactive.
KNAPP, for instance, has adopted a two-pronged approach to the skills
shortage facing our industry. Firstly, we have in place a ‘mature improver’ scheme that allows a technician with core skills – for instance, in mechanical engineering – to be trained at an outside institution in other required skills, such as electronics or pneumatics. Obviously, the mature improver needs to be on a contract that ensures that he or she will stay with us long enough for us to recover the investment made in the training.
Customer support technicians need to do much more than just maintain the equipment at their specific site at its contracted throughput.
The second avenue we are using to overcome the skill shortage is apprenticeships. Following the success of our first two apprenticeships at the site of shoe supplier, Clarks, we have hired two further apprentices to work as part of our resident maintenance team at the site of another major customer. These young apprentices are given day release to attend college and will gain an Advanced NVQ in Engineering Systems under the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies (Semta).
In my experience, apprenticeship schemes provide an excellent way to address the skills shortage facing the material handling industry today. There is certainly no shortage of applicants: we were able to pick the best candidates for our most recent apprenticeships from almost 100 applications. ●
www.amhsa.co.uk
www.PressOnShD.com January 2012 ShD 41
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