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MR LOADLINK

Smooth as Silk…

A recent order for SP load cells proved the value of simplicity, says Mr. Loadlink, who also reflects on U.S. planning meetings and wishes an old friend a happy retirement.

I rarely get through a blog without referencing the importance of planning (this one is no exception!). As a business, SP is a meticulous planner; we break yearly plans into quarterly plans, into monthly plans, and so on. Everyone has a set of responsibilities and individuals know their roles as they relate to the wider mechanics of the company. If something happens—good or bad, expected or unexpected—you can bet your bottom dollar there’s a plan for it.

Sound complicated? Wrong

The purpose of these plans is to simplify the way we do business with an end goal of making it easy for customers to work with us. I’ll elaborate but first let me share a short story to demonstrate what simplicity feels like as a customer:

Zoe Silk, sales and hire here at SP, took a telephone enquiry for some load cells from a potential new customer recently. It was a Thursday. Within 30 minutes she had delivered a quote and later the same day followed up. The order was taken and shipped the following day prior to arrival onsite on Monday.

Upon taking delivery of the equipment, the customer told Zoe how impressed he was at the ease with which we processed the order and got the kit to him. He said he’d asked for several quotes but two of them arrived the day we shipped the load cells and the other still hadn’t arrived. The SP load cells could literally have been on a crane while another supplier was still assembling information to provide a quote. Think about whom he’ll call next time.

Sure, Zoe is a diligent professional, but all she did was follow a simple plan. Simple for her, simple for the customer. At no point in the process between taking the call to rigging the equipment below-the-hook was there a complexity to overcome. In that moment, Zoe was responsible for the company upholding its commitment to work to the shortest lead times in the sector, but she didn’t have to do anything out of the ordinary to deliver.

I’ve heard stories about companies adding layers of complexity, particularly when it comes to quoting new customers. Before an enquiry can be advanced in some instances, personnel are required to fill out long forms about the person on the end of the phone, before initiating an unnecessarily complicated process to gather the relevant information from different departments. This may well have been the case when Zoe beat three others to the punch.

Beauty isn’t skin-deep

Simplicity isn’t effective if it’s only a facade; it has to be in the DNA of a company. We share information and communicate with each other with the same clarity and simplicity that our customers experience. Facts are outlined clearly, not buried in lengthy emails that skate around the issue. If staff always follow a plan and aim to simplify their processes, that will filter into client engagement and order fulfillment. Try it.

Simplicity is intrinsic to a good plan. When we sit down for a quarterly planning meeting, we don’t arrive burdened with briefcases full of paperwork or calculations down to the last dime. It’s not a time to blind people with science or compete over who can work out turnover or profit down to the most decimal points. There’s no digital chart on the big screen with 15 different measurables fluctuating every minute with the stock exchange.

Instead the content is much simpler: how is this product performing? What problems are we experiencing with its supply chain? What did we do well? What did we do not so well? How can we do more of the good stuff to boost the next quarter? What isn’t working? What are our distributors telling us that we need to be aware of? Has anyone got any feedback from relevant markets they’d like to share?

This was very much the tone of our Q2 review when I visited the states earlier this month. Also on the agenda was finalising a restructure of the U.S. operation under Jeff Miller, the general manager of Straightpoint Inc., based at HQ in Camarillo, California.

Job titles and roles are another area of business that gets overly complicated by some people. The key consideration should be matching a person’s skills to a role where they will be best-suited and most likely to make a positive difference.

(As somewhat of an aside, I’d rather have somebody in a place where they can positively influence or disrupt a marketplace through development of their personal brand than restricted within the confines of a job description written for someone else. I think we’ve discussed square pegs and round holes before.)

Using a blueprint

One could probably define blueprints as successful plans, meaning there’s a place for them at any successful company.

Here in the UK, David Mullard, business development manager, and I have benefitted from a clear plan on how to develop business. It’s also allowed Mike Neal, product sales engineer, to improve our lead conversion on non-standard products. It made sense, therefore, to implement a similar strategy on the other side of the pond.

To that end, Wayne Wille has stepped into the role of national business development manager, and Aaron Orsak is now regional business development manager. The pair will take care of developing our distribution channels and meeting with dealers. John Molidor, as director of projects and market development, meanwhile, can focus more exclusively on engineered load cell projects and large-scale orders. Say the military want 250 load cells of a certain type, John will be well placed to advance…the enquiry, that is.

Since returning from the states I’ve been involved with product development. I can’t say too much about the innovations yet, but it’s relevant to this blog because of the extent to which we simplify the process through planning.

If you don’t already use a Gantt chart (named after creator Henry Gantt) to track a product development schedule, you might be overlooking important detail that will later impact the launch or production line. From the initial design concept to product unveiling and posting a video on YouTube, a good Gantt chart will cover it all.

This excerpt from Gantt’s 1919 book titled, ‘Organizing for Work’ resonates with me:

‘…it is so simple that it is readily understood by the workman and employer, and so comprehensive that one intelligent workman made the remark, ‘If we chart everything we are doing that way, anybody can run the shop.’ While we are hardly prepared to agree with this opinion, we are entirely satisfied that if the facts about business can be presented in a compact and comprehensive manner, it will be found possible to run any business much more effectively than has been the custom in the past.’

Hear, hear!

Stalwarts set sail

In closing, I want to pay tribute to two friends who recently announced their retirements—Fred Ashcroft, who has called time after 47 years in the weighing industry; and Geoff Holden, former chief executive of LEEA.

We celebrated the retirement of Fred Ashcroft (third from left) after a suitably hot curry! SP’s David Mullard (far left) and Mike Neal (to his left) joined us. Mike is also ex Weightronix

We celebrated the retirement of Fred Ashcroft (third from left) after a suitably hot curry! SP’s David Mullard (far left) and Mike Neal (to his left) joined us. Mike is also ex Weightronix.

I worked with Fred for a number of years at Weightronix and then employed him at Solent Scales when I owned that business. He has been selling load cells and weighing systems since 1970 and is a true legend of the sector. I was honoured to be among SP representatives at his retirement curry. Fred always did like it hot!

Here I am with Geoff Holden (third from right) and friends on what turned out to be one of my last pints with him as chief executive of LEEA

Here I am with Geoff Holden (third from right) and friends on what turned out to be one of my last pints with him as chief executive of LEEA.

On Geoff’s watch, membership in the association grew to 1,100 in 62 countries. He frequently travelled to all four corners of the world (I know that because our paths often crossed en route!) to represent the association and its members. Geoff always spoke about LEEA and the lifting industry with a passion that will be sorely missed.

More importantly, Geoff always seemed to be a trustworthy, salt of the earth bloke that I always looked forward to seeing at trade shows and events. He was constantly willing to share the benefit of his experience, yet equally forthcoming in giving younger professionals a chance to shine. I hope his retirement affords him the time to drop into the industry again, when we’ll be sure to find another bar to catch up and exchange battle stories.

I hear Geoff plans to spend a lot of time on his boat—I’ve heard many a tale about his sailing antics—and I wish him, and his wife, Linda, a long and happy retirement on and off the water.

As Rat says to Mole in ‘The Wind in the Willows’

‘Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing about in boats—or with boats. In or out of ’em, it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that’s the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you’ve done it there’s always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you’d much better not.’

Literally or otherwise, happy sailing, my friends.

Mr. Loadlink

April, ,

Luck of the Irish…

Sometimes one can make their own fortune, says Mr. Loadlink upon his return from Ireland, where LEEA staged back-to-back roadshows last month.

David Mullard, SP business development manager, and I spent a week in Ireland at the end of June, where LEEA staged two roadshows in three days in Belfast and Dublin. I’ve blogged before about the association’s ‘Lifting the Load—Out on the Road’ initiative that brings seminars, a small exhibition and networking to a regional audience that can attend free of charge.

I like the format for a number of reasons, chiefly because it requires all participants to be dynamic and make the best of the short window of opportunity. In only a few hours—everything happens between 10am and, say, 2pm—a tabletop expo, networking and educational presentations are all staged, usually in adjacent rooms at a small hotel or similar venue. Snooze and you lose. Blink and you miss it.

The concept also leaves something to chance, which only adds to the appeal for me. It’s impossible for LEEA to guarantee large crowds at a free-to-attend event and there wouldn’t be time to network with 500 people anyway. It means every roadshow varies somewhat; some attract large, engaged audiences and others less so. To some extent, Belfast and Dublin followed suit with the latter drawing a larger delegation to a venue that was probably better suited to the concept than the other. But I liked them both.

The roadshows are a microcosm of any other trade show or conference and the same rules apply; if one is prepared to engage with people and make the best of it, there are opportunities aplenty, even at the quieter events. Too many exhibitors make quick assumptions about the footfall and likely outcomes of participation. They look at the lack of a queue at the door at 9:30am and write it off. They get their smart devices out and waste the day surfing the net.

These doom and gloom merchants are often the type who pass up the bonus networking opportunities to be had over breakfast, dinner and at the bar. Dave and I, meanwhile, had countless conversations with friends old and new outside of roadshow opening hours. A holistic approach should be taken to all business events, especially the short ones. At a bar in Belfast, I was about to order another Guinness to toast that very sentiment when the phone rang…

“Is that Mr. Loadllnk?” they said.

Ok, they didn’t ask after me by my blogging pseudonym but the conversation was uplifting nonetheless.

It was a local marina and dockside walkway specialist (there’s a market for everything!), interested in learning more about our centre of gravity and compression load cells. As luck would have it, we were only an hour away from their facility and booked a meeting the following day. It was fascinating to see the volume of cranes required at their yard alone and hear about potential use of our product range on jobsites.

We also made a point of visiting W.H. Scott & Son Engineers Ltd. (founded back in 1897), which offers a range of lifting and rigging gear, including our load cells, to clients across the UK from depots in Dublin, Belfast, Plymouth, Wexford, London and Bristol. Water utilities work continues to be a popular market for force measurement equipment, the team at W.H. Scott says.

Music to my ears

A lot has been said about the UK’s recent election results and subsequent commencement of Brexit negotiations with the EU. If you’re from far afield and have been following the news, you’ve probably gathered that the Conservative Party won, but lost, and the Labour Party lost, but won. Make sense? Probably not, but essentially it means the latter performed beyond expectations and the Tories have had to prop up a minority government via a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Now, we’re arguably in an even weaker position to talk ourselves into a favourable Brexit than we were before we went to the polls last month. This isn’t a political blog but I’m unashamedly a Remain voter. I didn’t see the logic in leaving the EU when the referendum was held and I still don’t. However, I’m also a practical person and understand the importance of accepting the decision and moving on. We’ve got to somehow get to a place of political and economic stability as soon as possible.

On the upside, regardless of political persuasion, it should be celebrated that the election turnout was up 2.6% from 2015 to 68.7% and, moreover, half of those aged 18-24 came out to vote, up a whopping 16%. For too long the younger generation has felt detached from politics and poorly represented by politicians, but a combination of Brexit (the vote didn’t go the way most young people wanted) and the latest General Election has set a C-change into motion.

Young people are talking about politics, which is great to hear; it’s their future politicians are shaping, after all. Politics even made the headlines at the recent Glastonbury Festival—a famous music event that takes place over five days in Somerset, UK—where attendees were chanting the name of the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, when he made an appearance on the stage. It’s not about whom they were shouting, but what they were shouting about—politics—and I give that engagement a standing ovation.

I’ve also been monitoring closely events across the English Channel, where French President Emmanuel Macron recently took office. I see similarities in how he’s assembling his top team to that of a successful business leader who understands that it takes people with different skill-sets and personalities to excel in the varied posts of government. Mr. Macron found room in his cabinet for a campaigning environmentalist and an Olympic fencing champion, for example. Some of the UK’s more one-dimensional political parties could take note.

Rising in the East

The oil and gas industry in Singapore, like many places around the word, isn’t out of the woods but it shares a mood of cautious optimism with other hotbeds. Growth of some description will be recorded this year over last and the longer-term signs are good, says Gaylin’s load cell guru Presley Ng Seng Tat, who I visited recently. Fellow Singaporean Intermarine Supply Co. (Pte) Ltd was equally upbeat about market conditions.

Both are welcoming increased demand for our ATEX and IECEx range of products, which is consistent with a number of notable orders we’ve received here at headquarters. Our most popular product, the Radiolink plus (RLP), was our first explosion proof load cell and we recently received an order for 40 25t RLPs from a Greek shipping company, which noted the product’s Zone 0, 1 and 2 hazardous area classifications.

It’s been interesting to compare the market’s consumption of our ATEX range versus, say, our Clamp On Line Tensionmeter (or COLT). There’s a lesson for all product-based businesses to learn in that the speed with which new products go out the door isn’t always the most important barometer. Much fanfare greeted the ATEX RLP—and then the expanded range some six months later—while the marketplace was equally rapturous when we unveiled the COLT. However, the latter has proved to have a much quicker ramping up period; customers started buying it straight away.

That’s not to say it’s a better product than the ATEX range and herein lays the point. There are other load cells out there, thus, the ATEX range fills a smaller gap in the market. The COLT, meanwhile, is in a league of its own, offering a state-of-the-art Bluetooth load monitoring app among a myriad of standout features. It’s not more important to our growth strategy than the ATEX range, it’s just delivering at a different tempo.

H1 high

Finally, we conducted six-monthly planning meetings at the end of Q2, which are always beneficial and enlightening, especially when you follow a record Q1 with another record second quarter! I fly to the states this week to complete a similar exercise with the North American operation (we have a 30-strong global team in place). Punctuating our year with these plans keeps us on track. Imagine implementing a strategy in January and leaving it 11 months before working out where something went wrong only a few weeks into the session.

Here’s to a great H2 2017 for everyone!

Thank you for reading and use the hashtag #loadcell on social media.

Mr. Loadlink

 

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