- Mar 14, 2005
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seth1 said:That is a perfect description of the British mentality,just like the car industry and just like the heavy vehicle industry.The sad thing is its just not that easy to set up a manufacturing plant,take Eternity for example,and it gets harder and harder as production of parts moves to Europe.I can not believe British manufactures still turn out products like this.We,ve had a cheap foriegn van(adria) from new,now 7 years old and never laid a screw driver on it,never even changed a bulb.Why cant the British do the same?
They can!
But the company bosses choose not to change. I have seen first hand how changing the culture of a business can radically improve not only the current product, but the design of future products, and the improvement in profitability. Now thats a recipe that most business would like to have, but its rarely a a process that can occur over night. There is an initial cost top get the improved processes implemented, but the benefits can usually start to be seen in about 12 months, and the full benefits start to be realised 18 to 24 months down the line.
Client confidentiality prevents me from naming, but I have helped 3 major and several less well known companies implement ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 management processes, and all (except one) are now in far better financial condition that they would have been without effort. Better productivity per employee, Lower scrappage and waste from production processes, lower warranty costs, and tested by surveys higher customer satisfaction. This was essentially based on the implementation of the standards.
What is particularly annoying to me is that British and other standards should be seen as the minimum performance criteria, yet in so many cases they are viewed as being the level to aspire to. Companies that have been accredited with these standards are often driven to exceed the standard a process which is embodied in the continual improvement ethic of the standards.
Its no mean statement to say that "Customer is king", Losing a customer is easy, keeping a customer is harder, and gaining a new customer is ten times harder. Only where the customer has no alternative choice or where the alternatives are equally rated can a less than 100% focus on customers allow a company to continue producing less than defect free goods.
Looking at the UK caravan market, there is no single manufacturer with product that excels at the popular price points. If manufacturers want to protect their markets, they have either got to prevent foreign manufacturers getting a toe hold, (which is helped by the fact that we drive on the left and most of the world drives on the right so its more expensive to produce UK models and the NCC approvals schemes) or they have got to raise their game so much further.
Damians description of the caravan retail market is very true - but its not quite unique. But it is sad indictment of the poor standards at play in the UK industry. I am certain that dealers do not want to be handling faulty products yet alone having to put right the lazy mistakes of the manufacture at less than the going rate. Sadly dealers are forced into this crazy situation by the terms and conditions they sign up to before they can become a dealer for that marque. Again its an industry wide problem, and if one manufacturer were to break ranks and actually offer fully supported fair dealership agreements they would be very popular with the dealers.
This structure is the result of the cottage industry beginnings, which evolved without without a proper plan, and as the manufactures got bigger they started to use their size to dictate T&C, rather than negotiate them fairly.
Purely a rhetorical question: Did Eternity die or was it murdered?