Sometimes the preoccupation with resolving constraints in-house can eclipse the potential benefits of outsourcing, such as focusing on core competencies that generate profit rather than drain it. PP Control & Automation (PP C&A) has been outsourcing the ability to overcome internal hurdles, mitigate risks, and unlock value add activities.
Identifying the best outsourcing partner involves scrutinising various competencies — from engineering and production capability, security, and size, to supply chain skills, experience, and approvals such as UL508A for North American markets.
It’s essential to assess whether a potential partner can enhance the production process, maintain financial stability, and match the company's scale of needs for now and the future.
A big part of early engagement between a machine builder and an outsourcing partner like PP C&A, is to simplify the decision-making process, and ensure any decision made is an informed choice. That starts with listening intently to business ambitions and business pains.
Within PP C&A, making outsourcing easy is an all-encompassing approach. That’s because, in outsourcing, success hinges on every team member’s distinct and crucial role, from sales to delivery.
The company has distilled its methodology into what it calls, the 3D outsourcing process: discovery, decision, and delivery. Delivery is how the outsourcing partnership is defined and structured - a stage-gate flow through departments.
That ‘flow’ is outlined like so: Engineering masters the product for seamless transitions, while supply chain experts streamline processes from parts handling to supplier payments, inheriting the entire management. Project management, pivotal for NPI, binds customer relations, engineering, and supply chain, fostering efficient, informed, and continually improving operations. Every aspect, including design, compliance, and logistics, is meticulously managed, underscoring the comprehensive commitment of outsourcing partnerships.
Garry Myatt, Sales Director at PP C&A can wrap up the pledge: “Outsourcing can be a very sensitive subject to machine builders manufacturing and assembling in-house, so we treat the ‘making outsourcing easy’ approach as one of knowledge sharing and partnership. It is about making those that we’re engaged with feel comfortable, trusting of our expertise, experience, and desire to build relationships that last the test of time, but also, greatly benefit them.
“By being transparent and open, we stay true to our message, and that message can be both ‘making outsourcing easy’ as well as being easy to work with.”
Numerous case studies, all endorsed by customers in different industry sectors and with different needs are evidence of PP C&A’s uppermost pledge. They all highlight how constraints are overcome, and how they’re now leveraging the benefits and growth that an outsourcing strategy unlocks.
Garry concludes: “You can tell a lot, very quickly, from the quality and standing of our existing customers. And I know they’ll all tell you; we made things easy.”
