Making it easy and Winning Together are phrases commonly used by the team at Alunet Systems. Knowing a great supplier when you experience one is a key driver of their people.
This behind-the-scenes passion and energy provides Alunet customers with valued competitive advantage in their local markets. This ‘winning together’ mentality is underpinned by the refocused culture of continuous improvement in everything Alunet does.
During quarter 4 of 2024, the management team turned their focus to three major areas of process that could directly impact their fabricators experience when partnering with Alunet Systems.
Phil Rotheram, group commercial director explains: “We are always seeking ways to continually enhance our products, people, service and after-care to help fabricators prosper and grow, the wider team have reviewed, assessed and improved a number of core areas.”
Rob Taylor, operations director, was project lead during these process improvements. Rob says: “Over the past year, and specifically the last three to six months, our team have reinvigorated how we serve our partner fabricators. We have implemented many process improvements behind the scenes with each enhancement always focussing on achieving the overall aim of our business which is to become a service leader in a market where doing what you say you will, with honesty and transparency is so vital in underpinning what we offer, and most importantly, exceeding what our partners expect.”
Phil continues, “As a business we always pride ourselves on the service and quality we provide. Unrivalled Customer Service and although we understand that issues may arise occasionally, we set ourselves high standards on our speed of resolution and the high level of service that we provide to our customers, achieving consistently an impressive 99.7% delivery accuracy!”
Rob adds: “We have tightened up on our warranty process to set clear guidelines for the control of warranty claims. Making the process easy in terms of what is acceptable and what would be rejected, while ensuring issues are correctly recorded through process with photographic or video evidence. The aim of these improvements is to use this information to improve our own internal processes and to swiftly identify negative impacts to services. Continuous improvements are actioned swiftly ensuring that our time is rightly spent resolving legitimate claims speedily and effectively without time-draining and service-sapping red tape.”
Phil summarises: “All claims are now handled by a team of highly experienced customer- centred people who ensure that any issues are resolved in a timely manner, reducing any inconvenience to their customer. All successful claims are followed up by a member of this team to ensure that fabricating partners are happy with the resolution before closing any ticket. In doing this, the customer is central to the process and is always involved and communicated too. Customer feedback has been excellent, with the changes providing structure and pace to a process that can often be ignored by other systems houses.”
Rob concludes “We have worked tirelessly to further enhance and improve the quality of finished metal. We want our product to reach our fabricators in an “as manufactured” state, right off the end of the extruder and straight into fabrication.”
As a result of Alunet’s collaborative and informed feedback, they now utilise both spiral wrap and bubble wrap, sustainably sourced and produced from recycled material to secure all packs of profile in transit. They have also improved the taping on profiles to offer better protection.
Protection is not the only area of improvement; Alunet have standardised the use of depth readers on all profile produced. This is an additional quality control to ensure the right specification of material reaches their partners, minimising product defaults and returns.
Finally, they are rolling through a bar-coding and revised labelling process to identify production and packaged product. Not only does this help with traceability it has significantly improved the time taken to pick, pack, ship and unload product. Time is money and where possible Alunet are living continuous improvement in everything they do as they firmly believe it is better than delayed perfection.
