Essentra Components cuts customer assembly time

Conceptole’s business encompasses many aspects of engineering, and details of a recent project involving telecom cabinets, urban furniture, electrical cabinets and charging stations have emerged which highlight the role played by Kidlington-based Essentra Components in reducing costs and improving productivity. Conceptole’s cabinet designs call for a variety of components, ranging from access hardware to cable management. On-time delivery of these items was always deemed critical to ensure that the company’s production processes ran seamlessly, but it transpired that the suppliers from which they were sourcing components were requiring ever longer lead times. With its own ability to meet deadlines thus threatened, it became clear to Conceptole that the business needed a reliable supply partner. A meeting with Essentra Components was convened at Conceptole’s Roissy-en-France site, and resulted in the view Essentra was the partner that could provide the proactive support needed to keep manufacturing output on track.

Working to short deadlines, Essentra Components has been delivering high volumes of stock including hinges, locks, gasketing, rails, swing handles, cams, spacers, feet and cable management solutions. To make the service even more hassle free, Essentra Components moved to delivering the required components in kits. Each kit contained the components that each specific cabinet needed, allowing for easier, smoother running and faster assembly time on the shop floor during the manufacturing process. Essentra Components' support also included prototyping, the provision of free samples and the supply of custom and modified products. Essentra says that by using the kits instead of ordering components separately, Conceptole has reduced assembly time during production by 10%.

With large stocks available to them from Essentra, Conceptole’s purchasing, logistics and finance departments are also said to have had an easier time ordering the components they needed, allowing them to concentrate on the daily running of the business. The kits also addressed another issue. By having components delivered at the same time and specifically aligned to the needs of the production line, productivity improved too. 

Essentra Components is also providing Conceptole with support in other areas, such as working with the Conceptole R&D department in the prototyping stage to find the best solutions and components for a variety of applications.