BRAMMER BUCK & HICKMAN

Brammer Buck & Hickman and SKF release range of informative resources on bearings in food & drink applications

Brammer Buck & Hickman, the UK’s leading supplier of industrial maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) products and services, has released a range of valuable resources on bearings aimed specifically at engineers operating in the food and drink sector; these include a webinar, a dedicated website section, a product brochure, a guide to the challenges faced in this sector, and several case studies.

In the food and drink industry, bearings are faced with some of the most demanding environments to be found, required to perform across a very wide range of temperatures, subject to frequent washdowns and guided by regulations that are becoming ever more stringent; and, of course, there are cost considerations. The choice of bearings therefore requires careful consideration. Brammer Buck & Hickman, which has extensive experience of working with some of the biggest names in the food and drink sector, has come together with bearings manufacturer SKF to produce a range of resources to assist food and drink producers improve the performance and service life of their bearings.

A recorded webinar, hosted by Brammer Buck & Hickman and presented by SKF, is available on YouTube on the RubixTube channel. In under 40 minutes, the webinar examines the key issues that impact on bearings in the food & drink sector, with a focus on reducing risk when it comes to food safety. It also identifies bearings that are best suited to this industry and includes a preview of the latest products and technologies due to be released.

For those that prefer to digest information in a different format, Brammer Buck & Hickman has produced two new brochures. The first is a product brochure on SKF bearing solutions for the food & drink sector, which covers the Food Line Blue Range, Food Line Deep Groove ball bearings and SKF Fryer bearing technology. The brochure looks at the key attributes of these bearing units and how they could benefit your production process. The second PDF is a guide: ‘Top 3 Challenges in the Food & Drink Sector…and how to ensure your bearings meet them’. It looks in more detail at the issues surrounding safety, cost control and sustainability in the food and drinks processing sector. Just as importantly, it provides guidance on how to meet those challenges. Both brochures are available to download from the food & drink industry page on Brammer Buck & Hickman’s dedicated SKF bearings section on its website: uk.rubix.com/supplier/skf/ foodandbeverage.

Case studies on real world usage of SKF bearings in the food and drink sector have also been produced.

Brammer Buck & Hickman is an SKF Authorised Distributor across Europe and has an in-depth knowledge of the manufacturer’s product range, along with early access to its latest technologies.

Brammer Buck & Hickman is part of the Rubix group. With turnover of more than €2.3 billion in 2018, Rubix is Europe’s largest supplier of industrial maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) products and services.

REUSED OCEAN PLASTIC Using waste plastic collected by local people from beaches and riverbanks people from beaches and riverbanks that is then cleaned, broken down that is then cleaned, broken down and reused to make new transparent and reused to make new transparent packaging

Ultimate flexibility

‘Holistic treatments’ are not usually looked on in the best of lights, but when it comes to material handling fleets it really is an approach that can prove to be a magic elixir.

Whether your business operates one piece of material handling equipment or hundreds, simply by changing the way you think about your fleet can bring real and immediate benefits to your business. How do significant cost savings sound? Or what about increasing the efficiency of your operation? Maybe easing your cash flow could help? No? Then I’m sure bringing greater flexibility to your business’s ability to respond to fluctuations in demand has got to be a winner?

The good news is that by thinking about your fleet in a holistic way - appraising all of the equipment you use, from pallet trucks to lift trucks, or from tow tractors to container handlers, as well as considering the whole life costs of operating the machines, together, can yield surprisingly significant benefits. For example, managing multiple suppliers across multiple contracts all with different renewal dates is a waste of resource as much as it is a missed opportunity to reduce cost.

Factor in any potential future growth of your business and the subsequent increase in demand that this might bring, not to mention any slower periods that may come about due to external factors and it really does start to become a game changer.

If this holistic approach is then supported with innovative product and service solutions that are built to exactly fit the unique needs and preferences of your operation, then suddenly your material handling fleet turns into a true asset, one that is not static but continually evolving to ensure it is, at all times, match-fit for your applications.

So how do you make all of this a reality for your organisation?

Well firstly, you find the right material handling partner for you. The key thing to look for is flexibility, both in their financial and contractual offering and in their ability to supply and support the right equipment for your fleet.

Combining dedicated new equipment, with rapidly available short term hire machines within your contract, will give you ultimate flexibility.

FINANCIAL AND CONTRACTUAL FLEXIBILITY

There is more than one way to ‘own’ your equipment, with an outright purchase being the least flexible of these. The more common contract hire or longterm hire agreements - typically 5 years - allow you to combine the actual acquisition of the equipment with an ongoing service and support level consideration - the truth being that you really do need both. This will almost always work out as more beneficial to your business over time than an outright purchase.

The critical difference here between the various providers, is in how flexible that contract hire agreement is. Look carefully at how easy it will be for you to change trucks if they are no longer ideal for their application or if they become excessive to your requirement. Particularly if that change occurs mid contract. Not all providers are open to taking trucks back. In fact, the ideal partner should act proactively here in identifying the need to change - and if they are truly committed to maintaining an optimal fleet and putting you the customer first, then they will.

Combining dedicated new equipment, with rapidly available short term hire machines within your contract, will give you ultimate flexibility. Supplementing a backbone of ‘owned’ machines with your supplier’s rapidly available short term hire equipment means you can increase capacity at extremely short notice without the inefficiency of holding spare trucks. Just be sure your partner has invested adequately in their inventory for it to be there when you need it!

Don’t be afraid of building some fully refurbished used equipment into the mix too, it will provide a very cost-effective solution to low utilisation roles, or as spare trucks if absolutely necessary.

FLEET FLEXIBILITY

To ensure each piece of equipment is exactly right for its application, the supplier will need to have a diverse and comprehensive range of premium equipment as well as the expertise to be able to effectively evaluate and audit your handling environment. Sadly, no single manufacturer can deliver a full end-to-end range, but the best partner should have a wide enough combination of brands to fully cover all your needs. Additionally, they should be able and willing to identify, specify and customise that equipment to tailor fit exactly to your situation.

Whilst of course we believe that the equipment we sell at Impact is the very best in the market place, the thing that really matters is the service, support and FLEXIBILITY you receive from your materials handling partner.

www.impact-handling.com