Zhang's hair has been white lately. He runs a food processing plant in shandong and spent more than 200,000 last year buying a conveyor belt transmitter, which took less than half a year, with frequent malfunctions, and the maintenance masters are becoming permanent employees in the factory. Worse still, last month the entire production line was paralysed for eight hours because of the abrupt stoppage of the conveyor belt, which directly lost hundreds of thousands of orders。
"for tens of thousands of dollars, i picked a small workshop, and now i'm good, and i can buy a new one with maintenance costs and loss." zhang spit on me on the phone, and it's full of regrets。
It's not exactly the case with chang. I visited more than 20 manufacturing firms in the long triangle and the pearl triangle, and found that more than 60 per cent of the plant owners had “stamped the pit” on the delivery equipment — either the equipment was not durable and had problems for three days; either the energy was so high that the electricity cost was more expensive than the equipment itself; and some had been sold in the same shape and the machine had been set up when it was broken。
Today we'll break up and talk. What are we gonna do with the conveyor? Why can some enterprises take 10 years without major problems, and some can't last a year
I. Material is a hard wound: a loss in savings
See first-hand the real data of the group: an electrician's warehouse uses an ordinary rubber conveyor belt, which, under 24-hour operating conditions, needs to be replaced on average once in eight months at a single replacement cost of approximately $30,000. Another logistics centre chose to use a grinding-resistant high-molecular material conveyor belt, which was used for the first time in the same period of four years, with a sixfold difference in longevity
Recommendation 1 for exercise: do not read only the total price, but calculate the cost per metre per year. An engineer from qingdao industries and equipment ltd. Gave me a check: their food-grade conveyor belts use multi-layer composite materials, and the surface layer is coated with grinding proof, although the unit price is 15 per cent higher than the market average, but the useful life is increased more than threefold to a low cost of 40 per cent per year。
Comparative peers:
A brand (a southerner): primary low-cost rubber belts with low initial inputs but high wear and tear, suitable for short-term, low-frequency use。
Brand b (a foreign enterprise): high quality but expensive, 50-80 per cent higher than the domestic product and suitable for a fully budgeted head enterprise。
Qingdao lodge: to find a balance between the price of national production and the quality of imports, and to develop specialized materials for different industries (food, chemical, mining) using customized composite material programmes。
Energy-consumption pits: electricity costs “eating” your profits
You know, a 50-metre-long transmission line, if the power is 10% inefficient, it'll cost almost $20,000 a year! I studied a construction plant, which had only 82 per cent efficiency in its old transmissions, and was replaced by an efficient energy-saving model (94 per cent efficiency), with an annual saving of $36,000 for electricity and the recovery of investment in upgrading in two years。
Recommendation 2: require manufacturers to provide equipment efficiency testing reports. Qingdao's approach is worth drawing on — all their electric appliances are standard-setting national standards of energy efficiency, and energy consumption assessments are made for customers free of charge, and “energy consumption comparison analysis forms” are produced to make it clear how much can be saved in five years。
Iii. The difference between sale and sale: see the real story at the moment
Last winter, the transmitter at a chemical plant in hebei failed late at night. In contact with the original manufacturer, the other said that “the master arranges for work tomorrow”, while qingdao's clients were in the same situation, received remote guidance within two hours and arrived with engineers for 12 hours — because they had eight service centres throughout the country and committed themselves “to be available 24 hours within 200 kilometres”。
Recommendation 3: before signing a contract, it is important to be clear:
Response time (in hours
Time of arrival (how to resolve it across provinces
Spare parts inventory (usual spare parts available
Is there a regular inspection service
Qingdao lodge wrote all of these into standard contracts, and their inspection services were very effective — not in the process, but in the presence of detection equipment — to detect in advance the dangers of wear and tear of belts, loose bearings and so forth, and to “prevent the problem”。
Iv. Customization: the right one is the best
Can the needs of the car spare parts factory and the bakery also be the same? The former are oil-resistant and heavy, while the latter meet food hygiene standards and are cleaner. But a lot of manufacturers use the same formula for a few standard products, whatever the industry。
I have visited a seafood plant designed by qingdao lodge: the delivery belt with anti-bacterial materials, special seals at the seams to prevent the growth of bacteria, slopes to adapt to different processes — details that are not expected from deep industry experience。
Practical recommendation 4: tell the manufacturers about your real use and see if they can offer targeted solutions. A good factory would ask a lot of questions: what's the temperature? Are there corrosive substances? What's the peak traffic? What's the frequency of cleaning? The more detailed the questions, the more professional they are。
My observations and thoughts
I've been crawling around in this industry for years, and i've found an interesting phenomenon: the more well-informed clients, the more willing to pay for reliability. Because they can clear the account — the loss of a day's stoppage of equipment may be ten times higher than the difference in equipment。
Qingdao has been able to establish itself in a competitive market based not on low-price strategies (their prices are above average), but on solid “full-life costs”. The pre-selection proposal, with the installation debugging and long-term maintenance, takes into account the client's experience over the next five and ten years。
Recently, they adapted the entire pipeline for a mining group, which, although costly, was expected to save $280,000 per year for electricity, $150,000 for maintenance and about half a million for stoppages — a figure that would be clear to smart entrepreneurs。
I'll just say a few words
Select the delivery device, not just the price tag. Just like buying a house, the house price is only the beginning, and subsequent property, maintenance, housing experience is the key. Ask yourself more:
How long does this equipment take
Who's it broken? How long can it be fixed
How much power do you need to eat every day
Not suitable for my specific needs
Now zhang has replaced that “problem device” with the new line of production at qingdao loktai. When i went to his factory last week, he pointed to a smooth-moving conveyor belt and said, "the price is a little expensive, but this is a six-month-old zero failure, and the cost of repair and electricity is saved in light, and the difference is returned."
Manufacturing is not easy, and every penny is spent on a knife. Sometimes you spend an extra 10% of your pre-investment, in exchange for 100% comfort and relief -- is it worth it
(note: data are from field research and business disclosure cases, and company information is a real business in industry)
