Driving the rollers
February 1st 2006 When it comes to outsourcing roller requirements, more and more large conveyor manufacturers and systems integrators are turning to Interroll.
Charlotte Stonestreet visited the company to find out why Over the past five years the Interroll Group has undergone some pretty radical structural changes. In the past, the 24 companies in different countries that make up the global group each operated its own manufacturing site. Now all manufacturing has been consolidated with one production plant per product line per continent. The resulting 'centres of excellence' supply Interroll's three divisions worldwide - Drives & Rollers, Dynamic Storage and Automation. Of these, the Drives & Rollers division accounts for around 60% of overall business, producing over nine million rollers and 200,000 belt drives per year.
According to Stewart Adams, who heads up the Drives & Roller division in the UK, one of the main issues he has to deal with is increasing pressure on lead times. "We are continually looking to stay on top of our market by offering improved lead times.
These come from faster production cycles at our centres of excellence, improved logistics and an advanced IT system," he says. "For example, if we received a sales enquiry for 1000 rollers now, from here in the UK we can look at the first available production date online in real-time, we can check all the materials that are in stock and we can enter the order immediately. The system will give us an exact delivery date."
Modular design
As a rule, the vast majority of Interroll products are manufactured to order. The modular design means that a stock of standard items such as bearing housings, tubes, spindles, motors and gearboxes can be quickly converted to rollers of the desired length and type. As well as affording maximum flexibility when it comes to production, this system helps control costs and enables a very high degree of quality repeatability.
"Quality has always been a priority for the company, but it's increasingly becoming even more important - it's something that people expect without having to pay that much extra for. Interroll is in a very fortunate position in that we are perceived, quite rightly, as a high quality option. Our modular manufacturing and centres of excellence help us to maintain this," says Adams.
As far as the basic Interroll range goes, Adams is the first to admit that he is dealing with a mature product in a mature market.
"Don't forget," he says, "the Egyptians used rollers in the building of the pyramids! OK, so we make them to a higher specification, but the principle is still the same"
Ancient monument building aside, Interroll demonstrates a constant desire to bring out new products, go into new markets and improve on the products it already has in its portfolio. "As a company we never sit back and assume we've made it, I would say we view what we do as a never ending marathon rather than a sprint," comments Adams. "A significant proportion of turnover is invested in R&D and we try and develop products to meet particular demands before they arrive.
"We have three product managers within Drives and Rollers, with responsibility for rollers, AC belt drives, and DC roller drives.
They are in contact with the 24 Interroll companies worldwide and using the global intelligence we have, they constantly monitor the market.
"Of course, we also simply ask our customers what they want! Many of our larger customers that we work in partnership with are very keen to allow us to join in with their product development. The key is not simply supplying a roller that fulfils its operational requirement; it's about taking the concept on to the next level and providing a product that will improve the customer's own production process." This business ethos is coming more to the fore as over the past few years Interroll has increasingly been the supplier of choice when large conveyor manufacturers and integrators choose to completely outsource their roller requirements. In Europe Siemens, Knapp, TGW, Vanderlande and Schaefer have all outsourced this side of their businesses to Interroll.
Outsource benefits
Although this is less common in the UK market - which Adams puts partly down to the fact that large British conveyors manufacturers are now few and far between - he is quick to point out the benefits to be gained from handing over roller responsibility to the experts at Interroll.
"If you have a large conveyor manufacturer and they are producing their own rollers, obviously they are using a resource and they are also covering overheads, resulting in a cost element. In general conveyor companies have their expertise in manufacturing and integrating conveyor systems - that is what they do.
When they remove things such as roller development and manufacture from their production they can really focus on their core competence, which is building conveyors. By outsourcing they have more time and opportunity to concentrate on what they do best.
"To truly outsource is a whole concept; it's not just about buying rollers instead of making them. It's about thinking how to develop the production areas that were previously used to make rollers, about how that space can be more effectively utilised.
It's about working with the supplier to improve the types of roller and looking at other, more effective ways of assembling them into the equipment," concludes Adams.
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