There are a tiny minority of companies with the highest level of comparative Competitive Strength - the condition we call Free. One of these is AEASEAL in Rotherham.
Here is an extract from one of their web site news pages
How does the Exceptional Customer Service Industry Leader, Stay Ahead?
The answer is simple: They invest in Technology, People and Processes.
There are few 9-axis machine tools running in the UK today, even fewer tasked with making small batches (1 to 3 off) in an ultra fast-response environment. AESSEAL® has now bought 9-axis machining centres for their dedicated Hydrocarbon Processing Manufacturing cells. The vision is simple; to provide exceptional customer service for unique and custom made Oil and Gas mechanical seals.
AESSEAL® is the industry leader at providing exceptional customer service for the mechanical seal industry. The business delivers 62% of ALL its products within 24 hours and 72% within 72 hours…. pretty impressive when you have 66 sites located in over 30 countries.
Exceptional customer service values run through the organisation’s veins. Service enhancement developments are second nature. This is true even for complex, low volume, custom made non-standard designs as found in the Oil and Gas Industry.
If you were to consider making a one-off engineered component on a highly complex and expensive multi-axis machine tool, some may well question your sanity.
However, given the fact most mechanical seals found in the Oil and Gas industry are hard piped, the last thing the customer wants is the expense of changing this when the seal needs changing. Therefore, practically every gland plate is custom made to suit the application making it impossible to put advanced inventory in place.
When you can’t put an item in inventory, you create a process and invest in technology that eliminates the need for inventory.
By making parts in a fraction of the time that it would typically take using conventional methods, eliminating the need to set-up the machine tool at the same time, the vision of delivering exceptional service on non-standard products becomes a reality.
In a unique initiative, AESSEAL plc is creating machining cells in which the machines themselves and the supporting infrastructure replace the need for inventory. Complex geometrical components will be made so quickly that customers will receive seals as if they had been already produced and available “off the shelf”.
The highlighting colours and bold emphases are mine, not AEASEAL's
This is Different Thinking and is delivering Different Results.
AEASEAL is a UK Manufacturing company that has maintained unbroken growth since its foundation in 1983. Their total focus is, and has been from Day 1, on Customer Service. Please go to their web site and read all about them(there is a link at the bottom of this page) .
You too could follow this path - if you have the courage, the determination, the sustained inventiveness and develop the disciplines, the attitudes, the values and the competence they have. If you develop the Different Thinking that they, and all the others that are at this level of Competitive Strength, have learned to do. We have spent 15 years developing tools and techniques to help you to help yourself to make this transition, better, faster, cheaper.
Why do I feel good about this? In 1982 I went to work for McDonnell Douglas Automation Company to sell their new CAD/CAM technology here in the UK. Way back then, I saw an extremely complex and urgently needed ( 4 days to launch) Space Shuttle component being machined whilst the design was still being completed - the Design to Manufacturing lead time was 30 minutes! I learned at that moment that nothing was impossible.
Over the next 6 years our small McAuto UK team helped British manufacturing pioneers to introduce this new technology to transform their businesses - mould and tool makers, aerospace component makers, telephone companies, machinery makers, and JCB. Others followed. We were encouraging a revolutionary manufacturing strategy, the ideal goal of maximum flexibility and adaptabilty in manufacturing capacity - the shorthand was "Economic Batch Quantity equals One". ("EBQ=1" - does anybody remember that buzzword?).
Now, 26 years later, this is a perfect demonstration of the achievement of that goal - and for a business differentiating purpose - outstanding Customer Service.
You can find out more about the new concept of comparative Competitive Strength on our web site page. You can learn more about Different Thinking for Different Results on our insert page.
And you can learn more about AEASEAL, a beacon of Excellence - here.
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