Ian Ritchie Managing Director

Ian Ritchie, Managing Director of Brammer UK

Brammer has unveiled its new Essential Maintenance Catalogue, providing a comprehensive guide to the widest range of maintenance products available to the UK market. More than 50,000 products are featured across almost 2,000 pages.

Detailed but easy to use, the informative catalogue provides key information and pricing details on the most popular products in Brammer’s comprehensive portfolio, which includes bearings and seals, mechanical and electrical power transmission, fluid power, health and safety, tools and general maintenance products.

Ian Ritchie, Managing Director of Brammer UK, commented: “Our Essential Maintenance Catalogue is the ultimate handbook for manufacturers seeking to improve operations through efficient and high-performing maintenance products”.

To order your copy of the Essential Maintenance Catalogue call 08447 363665, visit www.brammer.co.uk or email marketing.uk@brammer.biz.

The newsletter from the UK’s leading supplier of MRO products and services Issue 10

www.brammer.co.uk

The LinkForewordContinued uncertain trading conditions in many manufacturing sectors mean that manufacturers must continually seek more efficient and cost-effective ways of working.

One area that can deliver real benefits is maintenance spares purchasing, where a properly planned and implemented strategy can drive significant value in procurement, maintenance and manufacturing operations. This topic forms the focus of our main article in this edition of The Link.

We also feature an example of how one of our customers is reaping the benefits of improved energy efficiency and reduced carbon footprint after conducting compressed air audits across its manufacturing plants with Brammer.

Our guest contributor for this issue is Andy Pye, Consulting Editor of Controls, Drives & Automation, while you can also read more about the excellent reception being given across the UK to our Mobile Centre of Excellence.

Happy reading!

New Essential Maintenance Catalogue

“Brammer has more

than 3.5 million products

available. While the

catalogue cannot detail

every single one of these,

it certainly highlights our

range of capabilities to

UK manufacturing companies,

as well as our extensive

service offering.”

HRH the Duke of York visits the Nestlé stand at the Big Bang UK Young Scientists’ and Engineers’ Fair

A ‘Smart’ solution for Nestlé

2

Latest news

Major EDF Energy contract win

Brammer has joined forces with Festo to provide components for a giant working model of a Smartie® tube built by engineering apprentices at Nestlé.

The four-metre high tube was designed for the Nestlé stand at The Big Bang UK Young Scientists’ and Engineers’ Fair at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, where it was viewed by HRH the Duke of York, who also spoke to Nestlé apprentices Mark Thompson and Andrew Ventress.

Tony King, Asset Maintenance Manager at Nestlé York, commented: “We’re really grateful to Brammer and Festo for helping us out with the components to create the model. We put the challenge to our team of apprentices to create a giant, moving Smartie tube and the Duke of York was clearly impressed by what he saw.”

Brammer has confirmed its status as a

leading partner to the energy sector by

securing a major new contract with EDF

Energy Nuclear Generation. The three-year

maintenance spares contract will see

Brammer provide a full range of MRO

products and technical support to a

business unit within one of the UK’s largest

home and business energy suppliers.

Brammer will use its extensive buying power

to supply eight EDF Energy sites across the

UK with products which engineers can call

upon when required. This will result in

significant cost savings for the company,

as well as optimising the procurement of plant

spares and minimising downtime for the energy

supplier’s operations as a whole.

Gary Biggam, Business Manager at Brammer,

commented: “EDF Energy Nuclear Generation

was searching for a company that could offer

a first class procurement and inventory

management service, and we are thrilled to have

been chosen as their supplier. Our knowledge

and experience within the energy sector will

prove invaluable when managing EDF Energy’s

inventory, providing spares availability when

required to meet operational requirements.

“Our ability to offer a 24-hour service, as well

as our extensive portfolio of products, means

that we can meet EDF Energy’s requirements

quickly and efficiently.” Gary Biggam, Business Manager at Brammer

“Our ability to offer a 24-hour

service, as well as our

extensive portfolio of products,

means that we can meet EDF

Energy’s requirements quickly

and efficiently.”

Mobile Centre of Excellence continues its journey

Eric Berggren of Alcoa (left)

Graham Paterson of Premier Foods (right)

3www.brammer.co.uk

Brammer’s Mobile Centre of Excellence has enjoyed great success since launching in February, with visits to customer facilities and Brammer’s own network of Sales and Service Centres.

Designed to showcase Brammer’s unique product and service offering to a wider audience, locations visited to date already span almost the length and breadth of the UK, from Exeter to Fort William and Port Talbot to Norwich.

Eric Berggren, a project engineer at Alcoa, visited the Mobile Centre of Excellence in Exeter. He commented: “The Mobile Centre of Excellence, with its large selection of products, knowledgeable Brammer personnel and supported by the manufacturer’s representatives, was an excellent way to visualise practical uses of the products displayed.”

The Mobile Centre of Excellence also supported Premier Foods engineering summit, held at the Heritage Motor Museum in Warwickshire.

Graham Paterson, Group Manufacturing

Excellence Manager of Premier Foods, said:

“Brammer’s ability to bring their Mobile Centre of

Excellence was a tremendous contribution to the

success of the event. As well as forming stronger

working relationships, the day inspired many new

improvement routes and we have a handful of

sites already queuing up to bring the Mobile

Centre of Excellence to their own teams.”

Featuring product displays and video

demonstrations from many of Brammer’s

world-class supplier partners, the Mobile Centre

of Excellence also contains interactive

demonstration rigs exhibiting technological

innovation within a range of key product

application areas, including drive train energy

efficiency, counterfeit bearings, hydraulic

systems, industrial application, innovation and

lubrication technologies.

The Mobile Centre of Excellence will be visiting

Brammer customer sites around the UK

throughout the rest of the year.

Taking a structured, disciplined approach to managing MRO procurement will drive significant value in purchasing, manufacturing and maintenance operations. In this article, Brammer’s managing director Ian Ritchie considers the challenges companies face in extracting value from their MRO procurement and how best to implement a successful approach to MRO optimisation.

categories, and frequently several suppliers for the same product types with different individuals using their own preferred suppliers out of loyalty or for historical reasons. This increases administration time and greatly complicates the purchasing process, while not making best use of the purchasing and maintenance teams time. The problems are often further exacerbated in organisations operating across several sites, creating further disparities in the approach to purchasing.

Manufacturing organisations often manage tens of thousands of items, with large volumes often kept in stock ‘just in case’ to keep their plants and facilities up and running. Furthermore – with companies looking to save money where they can – the supply of MRO components can

become a highly transactional process, with

purchasing teams looking to shop around

for the best deals, often ordering a greater

quantity of a product than is needed to

achieve a bulk discount, tying up cash in

unused inventory. Meanwhile, dealing with

a high number of suppliers and buying solely

on price introduces the risk of unwittingly

receiving counterfeit products, with all the

problems they can cause in safety, reliability

and invalidation of machine warranties.

To deliver real value, companies should

adopt practices that will streamline business

processes, ensuring expenditure is managed

effectively and consistency of service is

delivered. Buyers should therefore ideally be seeking to minimise the number of

How to reduce cost and consolidate the supply base

In any manufacturing sector, a company should always be seeking to optimise operational practices to deliver real cost savings and improve productivity. The cost of procurement typically accounts for at least 25 per cent of the cost of each MRO product, irrespective of the products value. Establishing a well thought-out MRO spares purchasing strategy can seem a daunting prospect, but the challenge can be made more manageable when tackled in a strategic and considered way.

Maintenance spares are often of low value with unpredictable demand, while the sheer range and volume of components needed can be huge. This often leads to inefficient processes with internal teams dealing with a large number of suppliers for many different product

4

The big topic

5www.brammer.co.uk

Good MRO supplier partners

deliver more than purchase

cost savings, they can

help reduce consumption,

reduce inventory and

bring improvements to

the manufacturing and

maintenance processes that

can deliver significant value

across the company.

suppliers involved in their MRO strategy, especially those providing similar products and services.

Good MRO supplier partners deliver more than purchase cost savings, they can help reduce consumption, reduce inventory and bring improvements to the manufacturing and maintenance processes that can deliver significant value across the company.

Vendor consolidation is a key factor in avoiding supplier duplication – the use of multiple suppliers for the same product. Technical specialists can help identify and migrate OEM machine components to quality branded MRO parts to optimise purchasing costs. An OEM parts conversion strategy can reduce vendors and standardise parts, leverage purchasing spend and reduce associated transaction costs. Furthermore, a good MRO supplier can also optimise the availability of critical and fast-moving parts, with a supply chain expert analysing inventory profile and managing product sourcing, stock checks and replenishment.

Improved stock management practices can help engineers standardise their spares strategy, delivering cost savings through product and brand standardisation and lower total cost of ownership.

The big topic

By sourcing exclusively from a trusted and

authorised distributor such as Brammer,

customers are guaranteed quality assurance,

consistent part numbering, instant confirmation

of availability, total product traceability and a full

manufacturer’s warranty.

The opening hours of the InsiteTM can be geared

to suit the customer’s operating patterns. It also

eliminates the need for maintenance staff to

‘shop around’, while administration and costs

are dramatically reduced, as only one invoice

is received each month. Meanwhile, working

capital is lowered too, as parts are only charged

when they are handed over by the InsiteTM.

Inventory management services are also

available, with Brammer completely handling

a company’s MRO needs. It is important for

manufacturing companies to consider who is

best equipped to own and manage inventory.

This is an approach that is set to become

more and more the norm for manufacturing

companies, offering an efficient and

practical solution to fulfil a company’s MRO

purchasing needs. A white paper, detailing

how to implement an effective MRO spares

management strategy, can be downloaded from

http://www.brammer.co.uk/white-paper.htm.

The solution is a strategy that not only

consolidates MRO spares processing and

handling costs, but also rationalises the supplier

base, the numbers of spare parts used and

stock held, while guaranteeing quality and

continuity of supply.

One approach that is delivering real value for

manufacturers in a wide range of sectors is a

Brammer InsiteTM service, which is effectively a

Brammer branch on a company’s premises and,

with the stock held optimised to meet the needs

of the customer, can immediately reduce the

MRO supplier base.

Brammer active

6

Peter Stevens, Group Carbon & Energy Manager at Marshalls

“This enabled us to reduce

our carbon footprint by

426 tonnes.”

An air-tight energy saving solution for Marshalls

use, and the interaction between supply and demand. The output of a compressed air system, energy consumption in kilowatt-hours, and the annual costs of operating the system are calculated. The auditor also measures total air losses

from leaks and locates those that are

significant. Following Brammer’s audit

at Marshalls and the completion of the

remedial work, Brammer is now working

Compressed air is used in a wide range of industrial applications and its generation accounts for more than ten per cent of electricity supplied to industry. However, the process of compressing air can be wasteful and of the total energy supplied to a compressor, as little as eight to ten per cent is converted into usable energy at the point of use. Despite the high cost of production, many systems waste around 30 per cent of the compressed air through leaks, poor maintenance, misapplication and poor control.

The UK’s leading hard landscaping product supplier, Marshalls, is a major user of compressed air at its numerous manufacturing operations. The company is constantly seeking to reduce air leakage and improve efficiency in a drive to save energy and reduce associated costs.

Marshalls approached Brammer, a supplier partner to Marshalls for seven years, to conduct a full air leak audit at its manufacturing facilities.

Brammer’s audit involved using specialist equipment to detect all air leaks, identifying each leak with a number, photographing the leaking units, and specifying the appropriate parts for repair in order to make it easier for the completion of remedial work.

Nigel Cork, key account development manager of Brammer, believes a compressed air audit has the capability to provide immediate energy savings which could be as high as 30 per cent. When the potential to reduce operating costs by 50 per cent is also taken into consideration, the overall impact on the bottom line is sizable.

Nigel explains a typical air leak audit normally contains an examination of both air supply and

closely with Marshalls to lower the pressure

at the compressors and to install line-side

monitoring equipment so that any future

leakages can be identified as soon as they

occur. This enables remedial work to be

factored in to either a planned maintenance

programme, or undertaken as part of an

unscheduled outage.

Peter Stevens, Group Carbon & Energy

Manager at Marshalls, said: “Brammer

and Marshalls have worked in partnership

to conduct air leak audits on all major

manufacturing sites within the group. This

enabled us to reduce our carbon footprint

by 426 tonnes. Future work includes video

tutorials for staff on better air management

to achieve further savings.”

The EDF Energy CTO Charity Cycle Challenge Team

Round-up

7www.brammer.co.uk

Brammer backs EDF Energy’s Paralympic fundraiser

Geoff Ford, EDF Energy’s Fleet Contract Manager, said: “We’d like to thank Brammer for their generous sponsorship of the EDF Energy CTO Cycle Challenge. As the company’s charity partner, EDF Energy has worked closely with the

Brammer is supporting EDF Energy’s Central Technical Organisation (CTO) Charity Cycle Challenge with a sponsorship of £2,000.

Between 14 and 16 June, a team of up to 30 cyclists from leading energy provider EDF Energy will travel 205 miles from Paris to London. The team will fly Brammer’s company flag during the challenge, as well as sporting Brammer’s logo on the front and back of their cycling shirts.

With a fundraising target of £30,000, all money raised will go to the British Paralympic Association. Ian Ritchie, Managing Director of Brammer UK, commented: “It is a privilege to sponsor EDF Energy’s CTO Charity Cycle Challenge. Not only is the journey a fantastic achievement by all of the team involved, but the money raised is going to a very worthy cause.”

British Paralympic Association over the past two years, and know that the money raised will go to a great cause – ensuring that the biggest, best prepared team of athletes can compete this year at the home Games.”

Brammer welcomes CRC proposalsBrammer has welcomed government proposals to simplify the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC), which will help further cut carbon emissions in the long run.

Introduced in April 2010, the CRC has been a mandatory emissions trading scheme requiring businesses that use more than 6,000 MwH of half-hour metered electricity to reduce their emissions year on year, with the aim of reducing carbon emissions by 1.2 million tonnes each year by 2020. Businesses have to report on energy used and pay tax on the amount. The general public is then able to view this within a performance league table.

Under the new proposals, the CRC qualification

process will be shortened, with the number of

fuels covered reduced from 29 to just four.

Meanwhile, reporting will be reduced and

records will not need to be kept for such a

long period of time.

Jeremy Salisbury, Head of Marketing at

Brammer, commented: “When it was introduced,

the CRC simply formalised in legislation what

responsible, well-run businesses were already

doing anyway – reviewing all aspects of their

processes to understand their plant’s energy

needs and cut out wasteful energy consumption

to help improve energy efficiency. This is

key to improving profitability.

“The burden of complying with CRC

requirements should not be excessive

and certainly should never impact on the

real priority of identifying and implementing

measures to reduce energy usage and

operational costs. The new proposals are to

be welcomed as, if implemented, they will

significantly cut administration time and so

allow greater focus on energy reduction

measures and other projects to help

enhance competitiveness.”

Straight Talk

For more information about Brammer’s products and services please contact us.

0870 240 2100 www.brammer.co.uk

Straight Talk is a regular editorial feature delivered by leading manufacturing industry experts. In this edition, Andy Pye, Consulting Editor of Controls, Drives and Automation and Managing Editor of ProSecurityZone.com, looks at the important online considerations for manufacturing industry.

The threat from withinAs someone who is privileged to work as an editor on a new print magazine serving the manufacturing sector, whilst at the same time working on an online publication covering security issues, it is instructive to look at the overlap between the two.

The cyber-security industry is a thriving business sector, as evidenced by the Infosecurity show, held at Earl’s Court the week before Drives and Controls – and the contrast was striking. My colleagues and I had invitations from 150 different companies for one-to-one briefings. Oh, for a manufacturing sector with this degree of vitality!

However, mention the manufacturing industry or the shop floor to many of this audience, and varying degrees of puzzlement ensue: “Ah yes, manufacturing,” they say. “I’m sure there are security issues there.” Memo to marketing department…

Of course, those of us who keep close to manufacturing and automation are well aware of a few well-documented instances of security breaches affecting manufacturing. Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010 which initially spread via Microsoft Windows, and targeted proprietary industrial software and equipment. While it was not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems, it was the first discovered malware that spied on and subverted industrial systems, and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.

The worm initially spread indiscriminately, but included a highly specialised malware payload designed to target SCADA systems configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes. Potentially, the consequences of infecting safety-critical automation systems in this way are catastrophic. Breaches are facilitated by the

responsibility for computers on the

shop floor often falling outside the remit

of the IT department.

Hacking is no longer the province of

mischievous schoolboy geeks. It is often big

business, sometimes even state-sponsored.

There are documented instances of hackers

working to regular office hours with regular

meal and coffee breaks.

We can expect the frequency and severity

of attacks on a company’s manufacturing

equity to increase with time. A major

vulnerability is emerging with BYOD

(which stands for Bring Your Own Device),

something which employees are increasingly

expecting to be able to do, and which

employers are reluctantly having to admit

they are having difficulty controlling.

Speaking in a BT-sponsored press breakfast,

one representative of the Ministry of Defence

stated: “We have a policy on BYOD – we

don’t allow it.” But as time passes, few

organisations – even the MoD – will be

able to enforce it, as smartphones, IPADs

and other devices become essential tools

for the professional.

Your employees are now your greatest

security vulnerability! Poorly trained

employees are a huge liability, but keeping

them educated about the risks is the first

step towards putting you back in control.

Andy Pye