Quality, cost efficiency and less complexity
A competent and trusted supplier can take care of the entire supply chain for a customer, starting from the understanding of customer needs to the delivery of a serial product. Cabin design, engineering, manufacturing and logistics are the core competencies of a supplier. Processes are optimized to provide the highest quality and to reduce costs and complexity. When purchasing a cabin as a complete plug and play unit cost-effectiveness is even further increased and customer’s own resources are released to core business.
The benefits of outsourcing are not only limited to the cost of material and manufacturing. A service provider is often also responsible for the planning, resourcing and operation of the full supply chain. Several value-adding activities can be provided during the cabin project, these are bundled up into the competitive service package delivered to the customer.
The following activities are examples of what a cabin supplier can provide to an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer):
– Industrial design and cabin concept
– Cabin specification and BOM development
– Cabin technology R&D
– Integration of the cabin into the OEM equipment, e.g. electrics, software etc.
– Cabin documentation for production and maintenance
– Continuous improvements and maintenance
– Sourcing of materials and components including development of supply chain
– Maintaining quality standards and documentation
– Production planning and management
– Warehousing and logistics solutions
– Aftermarket services
A cabin supplier can provide extensive know-how and expertise to the customer by offering long-term perspective and a wide spectrum of services that positively reflect to the quality and cost-level of a product and remove the complexity from the OEM to handle.
A competent supplier continuously improves products and processes, leading to a higher quality and reducing Total Cost of Ownership.
“Our key target is to make our customers’ life easier by finding quick solutions when problems occur. While at the same time, we are constantly developing general ideas for product improvements to avoid future quality issues. We are flexible and capable to implement changes in all details in a short period of time, while actively working with customers to improve the quality level or our products. Customers expect our continuous support to improve their products, reduce cost and smoothen the supply chain”, underlines Juha Juvonen, Technical Manager at Fortaco.
Boosting of manufacturing and product management
Efficiency in manufacturing and related processes is one of the greatest advantages a cabin supplier can provide to its’ customers. Manufacturing automatization provided by a supplier improves quality, adds value in efficiency, offers cost-reduction potential while reducing production time and increasing flexibility to customer demands. “We aim to automatize production with modern welding robots and assembly tools. A large investment offers us long-term benefits, while for many of our customers it’s not a sustainable solution due to low production volume and utilization rate”, summarizes Tomi Metsä-Ketelä, Fortaco Sales Manager.
A cabin may include up to 1.000 – 1.500 different parts and a sourcing work requires constant supplier management, quality reviews, logistics documentation, tracking and handling of material. Outsourcing of such a work to a specialized cabin supplier provides an OEM customer with a reliable level of delivery accuracy and quality for a competitive product. “The complexity of material procurement can be seen when we manage material purchasing, storage, documentation and quality inspection on behalf of our customer. This way the customer can order a fully assembled and ready-made cabin with a single line item”, Tomi Metsä-Ketelä explains.
Supplier’s logistic competence is a guarantee of continuous production
For the customer’s production flow the deliveries just-in-time or just-in-sequence are crucial. Supplier flexibility releases inventory and storage space at the customer end. Logistical arrangements, such as VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) are getting more in the focus.
“By using Lean methodologies and shortened production times we assure quick and continuous cabin deliveries, but when needed, we can also provide VMI arrangements through a third party service providers. VMI is a solution we are using for long distance deliveries, for example to the US or even in Europe, to compensate long transport times”, says Juha Juvonen.
Commonality brings clear savings for customers
“We are continuously aiming to standardize components used in cabins we manufacture to increase their usage more widely and to benefit from the scale effect. We have also centralized our procurement channels, implemented common sourcing categories and supplier management processes to improve our competitiveness further. By offering common and proven technical solutions at a competitive price we can mutually benefit with our customers”, Tomi Metsä-Ketelä explains.
Key benefits when outsourcing cabin production
– Enable customers to focus on their core business.
– Turn fixed costs to variable costs and reduce capital employed.
– Increase operational flexibility.
– Improve efficiency of core in-house manufacturing processes by reducing complexity.
