When upgrading or investing in new technology, businesses can get ahead by buying only what is needed and ensuring that both current and future expectations will be met. It’s here that today’s enclosures suppliers can help, as Rittal’s Philip Glenister explains
Creating strong partnerships with enclosures suppliers is one way that modern businesses can grow and prosper. There are many articles and literature based around systems or solutions and it is worth understanding the philosophy behind the statements.
An underlying message
At first glance much of the literature may seem like mere marketing campaigns. However, there is a fundamental message that runs a lot deeper than striking graphics and confident statements for promotional purposes. The main focus is to provide major benefits in the way of design and development of solutions to all the customers who require complete systems – from the enclosure products themselves to the thermal management, integration, power distribution, IT infrastructure and service.
Regarding the system principle, everything the supplier does should centre on the benefits to the customer. There should be a perfectly coordinated system platform that unites products, engineering solutions and a comprehensive service.
To achieve this expertise, knowledge and products can be harnessed to effectively complete projects without capital expenditure, expensive resource or costly mistakes. This may sound too good to be true, but by using the supplier’s experience within the enclosure and cooling industry it should be possible to provide customers with a range of engineering tools and configurators to aid the accurate design of a solution.
Possibilities include drawing files for the enclosures and accessories that can be imported into your design software, through to the thermal management program that can calculate and recommend an accurate cooling solution for important projects. Inevitably this will help reduce the design timescales without the need to reproduce detailed product drawings and calculations for the cooling performance, and will also improve the accuracy of the design to get it right first time.
Product development
By taking on the system approach, customers can open the door to a raft of potential for product development. From VDMA studies on performance measurement in the design/engineering industry, it has been shown that around 70-80% of production related cost can be attributed to product development.
The average daily breakdown of the design department’s time equates to 30% product development, 42% reacting to other departments and customers and 28% for other activities i.e. clarification, passing on information and administration. From these figures it is easy to understand where the support from a supplier partnership can help by providing the tools and information easily to help reduce delays, which in turn creates a more efficient design process.
Of course, it is vital that there is the correct product range to complement the design, as without it, the system principle cannot be substantiated. When approaching any new design project there must be the knowledge that there is an off the shelf proven product that can be called upon, without the time and cost of reinventing the wheel.
Going bespoke or looking for alternative suppliers for products that may not be suited to your product platform, could create a design miss-match that subsequently needs more resources in management and administration. This is a key reason why suppliers continue to invest in innovations. There are always better ways of doing things, whether its products or service, which all benefit the customer in ways of efficiency and commercial advantages.
Full circle
The whole concept must finally be supported by an excellent service. The cycle would not be complete if a supplier partner could not support your product through to delivery and service support.
It is fine if your product is complete and shipped but what happens when it gets to the customer? Your customer could be next door or on the other side of the world. Who commissions the cooling solution and what about maintenance and/or technical failures? Again you would expect global standards and presence where support would provide the type of service your customers would expect wherever they are.
In all a supplier that can supply the complete system in their field is priceless. Not only do they provide you with confidence, they free up more time to concentrate on your core business and allow you to be more productive, efficient and profitable to gain a competitive advantage.
