DEAR GERALD

der the full burden of rising costs, but we are all so interdependent now that that’s simply not realistic. Whatever point you’re at in the supply chain, you need a stable, financially secure supplier who won’t let you down.

It’s probably worth pointing out here that Mila has a small number of very large customers who sign annual supply agreements with us. These carry with them guarantees on how both rising costs and savings on currency fluctuations will be shared – for the benefit of both parties. These obviously involve a level of commitment that, until now, many fabricators have been reluctant to make. After the turmoil of recent years though, I’m expecting interest to increase.

Richard Gyde

Managing Director

Mila

With the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, I have seen ‘Be the Best’ slogans around the city during the successful event and it made me think – what does the best look like in our industry, and how do we measure that?

They say that turnover is vanity while net margin is sanity, but is that any more important than customer service and customer satisfaction? Is it all about reviews, or accreditations for meeting standards? What about fully automated factories?

If we’re serious about improving as an industry how do, we do that and measure that success? We still suffer as an industry in terms of credibility, and it still has a certain, White Gold, perception in the general public’s eyes. The Grenfell tragedy also, quite rightly, shone a negative spotlight on fire doors, and we must challenge these things and shine a positive light on the industry.

The Grenfell tragedy has taught the industry the importance of certification and the all-round safety of the products we make. These products save people’s lives as well as keeping them secure and warm. be built on certification and standards. Hitting those standards is how we measure quality, and what should set you aside from others.

Most decent, reputable companies have got International Standards ISO 9001 for quality management and ISO 14001 for our responsibility to the environment, it’s how we measure quality.

The problem with our industry is that installation companies or even fabricators can spring up overnight without any business credentials whatsoever and not put any time into all the certification that reputable companies do.

If we know what we need to do to be the best, and where we sit in that, then we can improve and I do think we can learn a lot from other companies in the industry, be it competitors or suppliers.

At Shelforce I always invite businesses in our industry to our factory to look at how we do things because I want them to adopt the same employment model as us. I know, however, that our business performance is what will convince others to adopt it.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” and our industry should be about improvement and how we can challenge ourselves to make us better.

Yours sincerely,

Howard Trotter

Business Manager, Shelforce.

www.shelforce.com

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