When your logistics distribution centre and operational window are both large, maintenance is straightforward. You’ll have a large dedicated presence guaranteeing maintenance at all times: possibly as many as 15 technicians when counting the entire maintenance team.
Sites with moderately large operational requirements will require anything from one maintenance technician to four or five.
But in the case of sites with lower volumes (typically systems handling under 10,000 items an hour), it won’t be viable to retain their own team of maintenance workers, even though the need to quickly access a technician – even at a site with a small operational window – is critical.
There simply isn’t enough work for one full-time in-house technician, so it makes more sense to outsource your maintenance needs.
Long-term, the CEP operator benefits from partnering with a specialised company to oversee the management of technical human resources and skills – an approach that ensures the sustainability of critical expertise and aligns personnel more effectively with operational needs.
That’s when the CEP operator should consider joining a network that enables them to access preventive maintenance resources and on-call support from a team of flex technicians.
Instead of being assigned to a particular site, flex technicians will check and perform preventive actions while also being on call to attend to the acute needs of a number of sites in a particular region.
The site can therefore be assured its problem will be looked at by a flex engineer in timely fashion.
The support is neither 24-7 nor dedicated, but it is always available to members of the network.
CEP operators simply call a hotline to request the attendance of a customer support flex engineer.
Typically, a team of two or three flex technicians will be on call to attend to the needs of five or six sites in a network, so the possibility of all flex technicians being busy at one given time is slim.
Furthermore, the flex technicians monitor the sites from afar, enabling them to suggest improvements that will optimise operations and reduce the number of future call-outs.
Such a network of flex technicians can cover a region, or even a whole country, complementing the work of local technicians.
The maintenance approach is also applicable to the Warehouse & Distribution sector, serving industries such as fashion, retail and e-commerce.
And in some cases, it will be possible for the flex technicians to be based at one main site but be available to visit smaller sites when required.
Given the experience they gather working on different systems at different sites, solving all kinds of problems, the average flex engineer can quickly end up becoming a highly-skilled specialist – which is great news for their employer, as the flex technicians will be able to benefit the company by sharing knowledge with and offering workshops to other technicians, as well as submitting their insights to a database.
Some small sites buy a system from a provider that does not offer skilled maintenance solutions.
They make a saving because the CAPEX is lower, but then they hire one or two permanent maintenance staff and quickly incur high costs over the duration of the life-cycle.
Not only will this drive up their OPEX, but it will increase the chances of them having issues in the long-term that could bring operations to a standstill.
It will also end up reducing the life-cycle of their system.
The full-time in-house technicians at a small site will most likely find it difficult to get further experience of:
If the in-house technicians can’t make recommendations to maintain or optimise the system, this could increase the risk of the site suffering issues in the long term, which the in-house technicians will be unable to fix, at which point the CEP operator will have to find other solutions and end up contacting the hotline.
The regional flex technicians will fix the issues, but this is only fixing half the problem.
First, an immediate dialogue is needed to understand what caused the issue, and then a long-term dialogue is needed to look into the causes, learn from them, and better maintain the system to ensure future issues do not occur.
Continued qualified maintenance of the system will prolong its life-cycle. Limited maintenance might reduce the life-cycle to as little as five to ten years.
This underlines how important it is for a CEP operator to purchase a parcel handling system from an established provider with a solid track record at supplying support that includes performing maintenance when it’s needed to prolong the life-cycles of its systems.
The operator needs to seize every opportunity to extend the life-cycle of their system. This includes careful consideration of the OPEX and the collaboration terms of the provider during the pre-tender process. Some providers sell systems with no support, and this sizeable future cost needs to be factored in.
The regular assistance of a flex engineer belonging to a regional network of technicians could prolong the life-cycle of their system considerably.
The cost benefit of being part of the network, when compared to the price of getting a new system within five to ten years of purchasing one, is huge.
