Clearview National July 2019 - Issue 212 | Page 10

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A STRONG SUPPLY CHAIN IS NOT JUST FOR BREXIT
David Furness, MD of
Rapierstar explains why
developing and maintaining
reliable supply chain
partnerships should be a
priority all the time, not
just when major national
events like Brexit arise.
» » WHAT’S BEEN INTERESTING ABOUT
the period since the 2016 referendum to
leave the European Union is how, despite the
political turmoil, contrasting predictions of
boom or bust and the media meltdown, the
real world economy has continued the behave
in a pretty normal way. Businesses constantly
face threats and opportunities, customer
attitudes, trends and preferences will never
stand still, and new approaches to working
will come and go.
If the referendum vote had never happened,
we’d all still be here in 2019 facing challenges
in our businesses – they’d just be different
issues. In fact, these issues are very much out
there now and are significant. The US versus
China trade war, for example, is already
impacting on the global economy and climate
change continues to pose an ever greater
threat.
Regardless of what the external issues are,
businesses have to be agile and adapt, but
manufacturers also have to get the basics right,
and key to this is making sure supply chain
partners are strong, financially stable, reliable
and make an important contribution to the
quality of the finished product.
MORE THAN 50 STEPS
FOR EVERY FASTENER
The Brexit debate has brought to everyone’s
attention the complexity and importance of
global trade, and how many people take for
granted the fact the ‘journey’ that many items
will have taken to be where we need them,
when we need them.
The best suppliers to the fenestration sector
work extremely hard to keep key components
and raw materials ‘on tap’ all year round,
work that mostly goes unnoticed. The humble
fastener is a perfect example. To get from the
steel billet raw material at the factory in the
10 » JUL 2019 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
Far East, to a finished Rapierstar fastener,
ready to use on the fabrication line, involves
more than 50 processes.
These range from the 15 processes involved
in wire production (steel billet and wire rod)
and the five stages involved in steel wire
preparation (heat treatment, wire drawing,
calibrating, cleaning and surface preparation)
before the fastener is formed, to coating
the steel, checking and testing and global
transportation.
TRADING PLACES
Whilst every one of the manufacturing
stages requires careful management and
quality control to deliver the right standard of
fasteners, without a thorough understanding
of international trade, importing and customs,
those products may simply never arrive. This
is an area that companies like Rapierstar add
enormous value to customers, utilising vast
experience and international trading expertise
to navigate the route from state of the art
factories in the Far East to provide supply
certainty.
Talk of tariffs, customs checks and other
border issues post-Brexit will have focused
the mind of many fabricators and installers.
Will all the products needed to maintain
manufacture and installation run dry? Will
they rocket in price? Will they run out mid-
production? All businesses like certainty, but
in a sense these questions should be asked of
suppliers all the time. Any external issue has
the potential to disrupt supply chains – just
think of Icelandic volcano dust or the ‘Beast
from the East’.
QUALITY COMPONENTS
+ DEEP STOCKHOLDING =
CUSTOMER CONFIDENCE
In an uncertain world it is down to
suppliers like Rapierstar to provide confidence
to customers, and that’s what comes with
getting the supply channels right. When
Rapierstar fasteners arrive in the UK, they
are transported to our Cheshire bonded
warehouse, the scale of which is an eye-opener
to many. Here we hold a stock of more than
one billion fasteners, which plays an important
role in guaranteeing supply to customers for
many months on mainstream products, should
any manufacturing or logistics issues arise.
Getting products to you when you need
them is hugely important to give you the
confidence that you can maintain production
and avoid letting customers down. But there is
no point in supplying fasteners that are not up
to the job. That’s why Rapierstar’s supply chain
also has numerous quality checks and batch
testing built in along the way. The end result
is a component that will perform as it should
throughout the life cycle of the window
or door – most definitely a ‘fit and forget’
component.
www.rapierstar.com