The value in supply chains can sometimes be lost, particularly as the relationship matures or the focus resides around commodities. To uncover latent opportunities, it is sometimes as simple as hoping in the car and visiting your supplier’s facility.
LA Services, like all organisations, has a significant number of suppliers up and down stream of our manufacturing activities that we rely on to support our projects. One of our long-term suppliers critical to our product’s material integrity is Southern Steel Group.
We recently decided to visit their Milperra operation to get an insight into what sort of services they provide in addition to their quality plate and sections range. We also used the tour to introduce our latest engineering team members Raaid Allam (MQU Graduate) and Antonio Zanin (a post grad. Intern from Italy) So they could learn a bit about the processing of the material they include in their designs.
Jay Knaggs (Sales) and Greg Peat (State processing manager) were kind enough to give us a detailed tour of the processing section and also the extensive stock they hold. It was fantastic to see the size and scale of the operation and the processing capacity was a real eye opener in particular their large processing stations, structural section stock and the profiling possibilities of their 9-axis plasma cutting machine.
Supplier visits like this assist everyone from strengthening person to person relationship, educating employees so they have a better understanding of supply chain capability to service our client’s needs.
In our busy day to day lives it can be refreshing to take some time out to meet with suppliers and clients so there is a better understanding of the value each party brings to the table, doing this helps everyone improve the way we can integrate and ultimately it will improve the way Australian manufacturing can perform in the global market.
