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TEST, MAINTENANCE & PROCUREMENT HELPING INDUSTRY TO ‘WORK BETTER’
With companies in the manufacturing industry facing unprecedented challenges, some suppliers are doing as much as they can to help. One example is ERIKS, who has recently made a significant infrastructure investment in order to improve supply, service and support. Michelle Lea spoke to Richard Ludlam, marketing manager, ERIKS Industrial Services, to find out more...
he ERIKS’ mission statement: ‘Let’s make industry work better’ is integral to everything the company does. Recently, this has been perfectly demonstrated by the company’s £21m infrastructure investment, headlined by a state-of-the-art fulfilment centre to improve product range along with the speed and accuracy of supply. The Fulfilment Centre of Expertise (FCE) in Oldbury is now fully open and operational, boasting 11,000m2
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warehouse space and an advanced Industry 4.0 warehouse management system. Investment has also been made in updating ERIKS’ technical services offering, with improvements at its Engineering sites in Cardiff, Southampton and Chesterfield and its product technology centres in Barnsley and Warrington.
The Engineering sites focus on servicing, repairs, and upgrades of pump, motor and geared drive equipment, as well as providing a base for ERIKS’ site services teams. According to Richard Ludlam, this investment is crucial to enable ERIKS to meet its customers’ needs. He said: “Having the right product in stock, getting it to the customer when they need it, and offering advice on maintenance, repair and service is where we make the difference.”
The company has over 200 trading locations throughout the UK, some of which are actually located at their customers’ production sites. “Half our business is done direct on a customer site,” said Ludlam. “We manage their supply chain, stores management and distribution, which helps them focus on their core business. It is an attractive proposition.”
ERIKS uses its vast engineering knowledge across many different industries to help its customers optimise the performance of its production equipment. The company can draw on experience covering areas such as installation, condition monitoring and asset management services to show customers how they can overcome problems and re- engineer products to make them work more
26 MARCH 2023 | PROCESS & CONTROL
effectively and efficiently and last longer. “More and more we focus on problems from a circular economy point of view. Should we repair a product, should we replace it, or should we upgrade it?” said Ludlam. ERIKS is assisted in this area by EM3, an energy and sustainability advisor, and part of the SHV family of companies to which ERIKS also belongs. EM3 and ERIKS can work with customers to advise on how to identify where energy savings can be made and suggest how things can be done differently. Improving energy efficiency in a bid to reduce energy bills and meet environmental pledges is just one challenge facing the manufacturing and processing sector. Another area of difficulty is disruption to supply chains. Supply chain security is crucial and Ludlam explains how a specialist team based in Leicester is constantly looking at supply chain problems and finding solutions. This team is able to advise on-site customers of potential supply chain issues in certain product areas and look at ways of minimising disruption and safeguarding supply. Offering multiple supplier options in different product lines can also help mitigate supply issues, as does being part of huge parent company SHV. In order to keep product stock levels successfully maintained, customer orders need to be fulfilled quickly and accurately, another area where Ludlam believes ERIKS offers advantages. In a world where expectations call for efficient and quick delivery, the investment in the FCE mentioned earlier has been key.
The FCE has 21 automated vertical lifts standing at 12m tall, more than 400m of high- speed conveyors, sophisticated scanning and weighing systems for every order and robust Industry 4.0 configured IT infrastructure with real-time monitoring. With 50,000 flexible locations, delivering a 500% increase in fully automated storage capacity, the FCE runs perpetual inventory stock checking to further improve service levels.
Thousands of components can be picked
and packed every day, with total accuracy, and can be dispatched faster than ever before. Being able to ship goods held at the FCE, or from a growing number of strategic supply partners, straight to customers rather than via its regional service centre network can provide a significant time saving. This faster supply service now also has the option to consolidate deliveries or allow customers to request delivery on a specific date. Delivery times have been cut from an average of four days to next day or two days depending on the source, and customers are better informed on the progress of their orders.
ERIKS now has capacity for 11,200 Euro pallets – a 22% increase in racking space for pallet mounted parts – for small parts, the high speed conveyors help deliver a 110% increase in productivity and a 30% reduction in pick times. Today a product or part can be picked every 21 seconds. At each stage through the FCE, goods are checked using weight, size and barcodes to make sure the right products are delivered every single time.
The investment programme doesn’t stop there. ERIKS has also invested £500,000 in a new Southampton regional hub designed to support the company’s customer base across the South and South West of England. The regional hub replaces two smaller outdated facilities in Southampton and brings together core areas of engineering expertise in a central location, as well as a local stockholding of critical parts, improving the speed, flexibility and scope of customer services. Services include standard repairs and upgrades for pumps, motors and gearboxes.
The regional hub includes a dedicated bay and wash-down trap with segregated clean and dirty areas for machine preparation, heavy-lift cranes, advanced test and diagnostic systems, repair workstations, spray booths and curing oven, as well as final assembly and inspection areas.
Another £500,000 has also been invested in
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