FEATURE SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS
Industrial vending eliminates stock- outs and provides 24/7 preparation
shortages or to complete the company’s purchase request forms. This would put pressure on the purchasing and logistics department to fill stock levels ASAP.
W
hen customers rely on you to repair vital production equipment, typically
within a matter of hours, every tool, component or consumable item needed must be available. Failure to ensure this can result in missing customer deadlines and can also negatively impact a company’s bottom line. For engineering service and repair
company Fletcher Moorland, most jobs they handle fall into this emergency category. This is true whether it’s an easily resolved, routine repair or a more complicated issue involving obsolete or highly-specialised components. To differentiate itself, the company is
on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to repair and service production components for its industrial and manufacturing customers across the UK. This includes everything from motors and pumps to electrical and electronic equipment.
PLANNING FOR THE UNPREDICTABLE Fletcher Moorland must always have vital equipment and supplies on hand to cover any job that comes in. Due to the nature of this work, the company does not know from one day to the next the type of repairs that will be needed. This makes it impossible for procurement to predict stock needs. Stock-outs were becoming an all too
common occurrence. Running a busy workshop which operates 24 hours a day, including weekends, engineers would help themselves to what they needed on a job-by-job basis from the company’s stock cupboards. These items include ball bearing components, drill bits and consumables, including tapes, adhesives, batteries and sanding discs. With engineers then moving on to the next repair, they would often forget to advise management of imminent stock
S4 MARCH 2018 | MATERIALS HANDLING & LOGISTICS
Collaboration with Hayley has helped Fletcher Moorland increase its project throughput and profitability
Engineers are now more conscientious about taking items from stock. Fletcher Moorland will be redeploying its vending devices in its facility, putting components and supplies closer to the point of work to drive even more efficiency and productivity gains
PROCUREMENT CHALLENGES Further investigation revealed there was limited visibility into who was taking what, and when. This lack of traceability and control led to increased working capital and more invoices to be processed. Fletcher Moorland was urgently seeking a solution to improve visibility into stock levels while reducing the amount of time spent in sourcing and managing these important items. Fletcher Moorland turned to Hayley Group, a leading UK distributor, for help.
CUSTOMISED SOLUTION The teams collaborated on an industrial vending solution to ensure tools, components and consumable items are always replenished before running out. To meet Fletcher Moorland’s needs, Hayley Group installed a mix of automated, self- serve devices manufactured by Apex Supply Chain Technologies: • A SOLO wall-mounted dispensing
device for high value drill bits. • A Smart 5000 helical dispensing
device for consumable supplies including glue, tape and batteries. • Two AXCESS 6036 automated lockers
for precision ball bearing components. All of these devices provide easy access
to items while automatically tracking and reporting every withdrawal in real time to the Apex Trajectory Cloud. This cloud- based data platform automatically notifies Fletcher Moorland and the local Hayley branch office when any stock- keeping unit (SKU) reaches a predetermined level. The Hayley team has these items restocked within a matter of hours. Trajectory Cloud also automatically generates reports on consumption rates to alert management to potential issues. Using SOLO to dispense drill bits
eliminates the issue Fletcher Moorland was having with stock contamination. Engineers can no longer place a used drill bit in a package with new drill bits as only unused items remain in the device. Visibility into consumption through
Trajectory Cloud has led to process improvements. For example, if procurement sees a significant increase in drill bits being used on a particular job, they can procure different products to make the repair more efficient. This saves Fletcher Moorland time and money. By dispensing precision ball bearing
components using two AXCESS 6036 lockers, Fletcher Moorland is seeing the benefit of traceability. By putting a different SKU in each of the 72 individual locker compartments, Fletcher Moorland can more easily trace components back to engineers and projects as needed. All consumable supplies are made
available in the Smart 5000’s well-lit cabinet. This makes each item easy to see, ensuring engineers can quickly find what they need. Since these items are dispensed individually, engineers take just what they need to eliminate stockpiling of supplies.
AUTOMATION HAS POSITIVE IMPACT With automatic restocking alerts from Trajectory Cloud, Hayley has more visibility into Fletcher Moorland’s consumption patterns and can easily provide the right materials, at the right time. This helps them optimise the product mix for Fletcher Moorland and reduce the need for rush or emergency orders. The distributor has been agile in meeting their customer’s needs, so Fletcher Moorland has awarded Hayley additional business. In the meantime, the vending devices are also making a positive impact across Fletcher Moorland’s business. Procurement, for example, has time for more important tasks. According to Marie Roe, Fletcher Moorland’s purchasing supervisor: “The time spent dealing with emergency orders for standard stock items has been significantly reduced. “Procurement has been streamlined
from multiple invoices for each order, to just one weekly invoice from Hayley. This allows us to focus on more strategic elements of the business and devote more time to our customers’ needs.”
Apex Supply Chain Technologies
www.apexsupplychain.com/gb
/ MATERIALSHANDLINGLOGISTICS
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