Solutions Current Issues > April/May/June 2008 > COVER STORY
Email LinkPUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Our assebly team is committed to doing it right
by Leigh Bell
If there is one characteristic most people associate with Robert Pitchford (pictured right), RL Hudson’s manager of assembly and warehouse operations, it’s commitment. He is committed to doing what’s right for his family and for RL Hudson’s customers.
Robert met his wife of 20 years when they were in the seventh grade. He courted her throughout high school in the small town of Okmulgee,Oklahoma, and together they’re raising a 10-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son.
Robert has a unique role at RL Hudson, managing warehouse operations as well as overseeing the growing assembly department. An increasing number of customers rely on RL Hudson to supply not just individual parts, but complex, multi-component assemblies, allowing them to reduce costs and increase productivity.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The logistics involved in producing hundreds of different assembled components are challenging and require the dedication of dozens of RL Hudson team members in the U.S. and Asia. But the task of putting it all together falls to Robert, and he has approached it with his typical strong commitment.
The assembly team’s job is to make sure that parts designed by RL Hudson engineers, composed of materials specified by RL Hudson chemists, manufactured and shipped through RL Hudson’s supply chain, and verified by RL Hudson quality inspectors are assembled correctly and delivered to customers on time, every time. They handle all kinds of multiple- component assemblies like complex hoses, oil fill tubes, filtration systems and large bonded seals.These assemblies become components of engines, appliances, outdoor power equipment, and off-highway vehicles.
“We provide solutions, not just products,”Robert said.“A lot of companies go over to Asia, buy parts, ship them back, mark up the price and sell them to a customer. We’re not in that business. We start with the design of the part and make sure the material, the dimensions and the assembly are right, and that everything arrives on time. That’s why our customers find what they expect when they open the box.”
MAKING THE COMMITMENT
ENSURING ACCURACY: Rosannah Shepherd, director
of
systems training and development, works with assembly
technicians like Jerry Xiong to ensure that assembly
processes are understood and followed precisely.
Robert joined RL Hudson last year after he met Rick Hudson while working as an account manager for UPS. RL Hudson was one of Robert’s biggest clients, so he knew what the company was all about. He appreciated the smiling faces in the hallways, the efficient and attractive headquarters, and especially the strong, customer-focused work ethic.
“Looking from the outside in, I could see that RL Hudson was a great place to work, and when the opportunity arose, I saw it as a great opportunity,”Robert said.“I made the commitment and I’m really glad I did. RL Hudson cares so much about its customers and its employees, and that really excites me and makes me want to come in every day and do a good job.”
RL Hudson began assembling parts almost ten years ago with one employee. Currently, the department has as many as 15 full and part-time employees handling some 30 million parts annually.
The service grew out of customer demand, as did all the services RL Hudson has added in the past 27 years. During that time, the company has evolved from a small regional seal distributor to a full-service international supplier of molded rubber and plastic products.
MEETING CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS
RL Hudson doesn’t actively sell assembly services nor does the company earn a direct profit from them.The benefit to the company is customer satisfaction, which results in customer loyalty. Customers come to rely on RL Hudson, and that means everything.
“Assembly is not a revenue center for us — it’s simply a service that makes us more valuable to our customers,” said Vice President of Operations Roux Carroll. “Component assembly is an operation that, quite frankly,many customers would rather not deal with.”
Companies that entrust the assembly process to RL Hudson save the cost of labor, equipment, and production space in their own facilities.They also save the cost of shipping multiple parts and the headaches of handling multiple part numbers.An assembly from RL Hudson becomes one part number that can go directly into the customer’s finished product. Saving money, however, is not enough.
“Our customers appreciate the convenience and the cost savings we provide, but the most important thing is the quality,” said Roux.“If we didn’t deliver a top-quality product, this department would not have seen the growth that it has.”
RL Hudson’s Director of Sales, Steve Brockman, agrees. “We see more and more of our customers outsourcing that function. It’s a real benefit to our customers that we can assemble a part domestically, even if the individual components are manufactured overseas,” he said. “And it’s one less thing for our customers to worry about.They can count on Robert and the whole RL Hudson team to take care of everything.”
