The importance of a trusted partner

If you run a lean manufacturing operation with limited stock levels and demanding  deadlines, you need to ensure that your production and materials handling assets are up to the task, as downtime will inevitably be even more punishing if links in the process fail. 

Having the reassurance of a trusted materials handling partner to provide effective support is how RLM Packaging, a company with a reputation for product quality and on-time order fulfilment likes to operate.

Ian Richardson has been at the head of Hull-based industrial packaging company RLM Packaging based since 1990. The business started more than 50 years ago and manufactures a range of tin container products, serving clients in the lubricants, additives, paints and automotive products sectors. It produces about 5million cans per year from something approaching 1000t of tin plate material.

Logistically the manufacturing process involves highly automated precision slitters, forming, pressing, welding and seaming procedures. This is served by a materials handling operation that delivers bulk tin plate from suppliers and various other raw materials, removes waste and transports finished goods for despatch to customers.

Simple enough you might think; however, RLM has no large warehousing facilities, or at least nothing that carries stocks of finished goods. All products are made to order to a four week turnaround, even shorter for products on a regular call-off demand.

As a lean manufacturing model, the operation needs efficient materials handling. At RLM this comes in the form of local TCM forklift dealer Barek Lift Trucks, one of the leading materials handling specialists in Hull, York, Harrogate and much of the sub-region.  

RLM’s forklifts have a particularly tough workload, in action for up to 50h/week, with tasks ranging from loading and unloading to general factory duties. Durability and reliability is paramount. 

 Ian Richardson explains: “We operate electric trucks as they have multiple inside and out duties. They are versatile, easy to look after and simple to operate. Our operators know and like them.”  

RLM also operates an adapted truck with an attachment that rotates the forks to carry and empty scrap metals – this means it adapts to other duties when the business needs it.  

Crucially it’s the service and support that counts for RLM. Having a local partner that has invested time to get to know its business and is committed to a fast response is a priority.

There is no national call centre to tangle with, just a local number and a guaranteed response within 2h. And if a breakdown cannot be fixed within a working day the truck is substituted whilst a satisfactory repair is made. This means that RLM is never without the forklift for longer than a day.

It also means that RLM can afford to optimise its truck fleet. Unlike some companies where materials handling is an important resource and failure can affect production, for RLM the need to have excess forklift capacity to bridge breakdowns is an additional and arguably an avoidable cost. 

Richardson continues: “It’s the beauty of working with a local trusted partner. They understand the complexities of our business and the critical nature of their role in it. It allows me to focus on other things knowing that they are a very reliable back-up.

“I prefer to deal peer-to-peer in our important partnership relationships. Clearly decisions can be made without reference to or limited by some corporate structure, so agreements are tailored to my needs.”

TCM and its dealer network are at the IMHX exhibition in September. www.tcmforklifts.co.uk