Survey reveals burning automation industry issues

The biggest threat to manufacturing productivity is unscheduled downtime due to equipment failure. When production is interrupted, minutes of downtime can cost thousands of pounds, so getting the right component in under a day is considered crucial.

The 162 survey respondents were made up of European Automation customers across 30 countries in Europe, America and the Middle East, who were asked to rate the company’s performance on pricing, approachability, quality and diversity of products, responsiveness of sales team and speed of delivery.

As many plants operate constantly, 24/7 availability and an effective supply chain were top priority for most respondents. Furthermore, 67.6% of those surveyed said that due to the economic climate, competitive pricing was important but that uncompromised quality was essential.

European Automation’s success is rooted in identifying manufacturers’ demand for obsolete or end of life parts and delivering them quickly, rather than selling the customer a complete system replacement,” explains Jon Wilkins, marketing manager at European Automation.

The survey illustrated that in order to maintain our strong market position, we need to become even more agile and offer solutions quicker than our competitors, he concluded.

Speed of delivery remains a critical requirement for many manufacturers with 79.8% rating it as being very important or crucial to their maintenance activities.

Filling in the free form section of the survey, some customers mentioned good communication and language skills as two of European Automation’s key selling points. A small portion also named those outstanding sales people that went above and beyond the call of duty and delivered the best possible service from miles away.