Driving Throughput: Vertical Integration
Buying film and bagging machinery from the same company has its advantages but taking it a step further and partnering with a fully vertically integrated manufacturer can take your operation to the next level for superior quality and performance. Learn how vertically integrated manufacturers are game-changers for boosting throughput.
Unexpected Ways for Improving Quality, Driving Consistent Performance and Boosting Throughput
Can working with a vertically integrated manufacturer improve your operational throughput?
Operations managers are constantly exploring ways to raise their throughput rate. In this series, we’ve discovered how features like printer integration and packer-centric design can be crucial to getting the most output from your automated bagging equipment, and now we’ve a really big one for you, and it’s a gamechanger... Selecting a vertically integrated supplier.
Few manufacturers in the automated mailing and bagging sector are vertically integrated, so it stands to reason why the term and its standout benefits might not be familiar to you. Let’s dive in and discuss what it means and more importantly, explore the benefits of working with an automated mailer and bagger that is vertically integrated.
What is Vertical Integration?
A vertically integrated supplier manages the entire process of manufacturing a product, from sourcing the raw materials, all the way through selling to a customer, and includes designing, engineering testing, and producing.
That all sounds great, but why should you care if the supplier you’re buying your bagging equipment from is vertically integrated? We’re glad you asked.
Accountability – Faster Reaction and Resolution
Have you ever had an issue arise and each company you contact points its finger at another until you’ve gone down an exhausting rabbit hole trying to fix a single issue? Rather than having a situation quickly resolved, your time is spent calling different companies, explaining the challenge, and getting passed off to another contact. Worst case scenario, you hit a brick wall where your supplier tells you they can’t help because they buy their products from multitudes of primary vendors and they aren’t sure who can help. It’s not an ideal scenario for keeping your output at optimal levels.
With a vertically integrated supplier, the buck stops there. These manufacturers are responsible for the entire end-to-end process, meaning they have the quality assurance processes and expertise to know where to look to in their manufacturing processes to identify where your issue originated and furthermore what needs to happen to get your fulfillment processes back up and running.
Imagine this scenario. You’ve purchased a new piece of fulfillment equipment that has been working flawlessly with poly mailers helping your throughput keep up with the high volume of peak season. Suddenly, while loading a new job and a new set of fan-folded bags, the machine is faulting out. You’re not quite sure if it’s a setting on the machine, if there’s something off about the new set of mailers or if something has gone wrong with the machine itself. Luckily, you’ve bought the bagging machine from a vertically integrated supplier and a single phone call with their team helps you to identify the exact issue and solve it over the phone in minutes. Your processes have only been down for a few minutes and you’re already back up and running, keeping peak season packaging flowing out the door as scheduled.
The Pros of a Single Supplier
It’s not just the bagging equipment where you’ll benefit from a vertically integrated supplier, though. The benefit you can receive from using a supplier that owns the manufacturing of both your equipment and the consumable runs on it is multiplied tenfold.
It means that the equipment that you’ve purchased has been carefully engineered to run with the bags or mailers you are using. It also means that the bags you’ve bought were formulated and converted to be a perfect match for the equipment. You won’t run into the quality issues that arise from using sub-par poly products from overseas on A+ equipment because the engineering teams that designed the equipment were working closely with the engineering teams developing the film that you’re purchasing. A square peg that perfectly fits into a square hole.
Faster Lead Times, Affordable Pricing
Finally, choosing to work with a vertically integrated supplier has several smaller advantages to keeping your throughput at an all-time high.
The buying power of a company that is mass producing across the entire spectrum of their product portfolio positions them to secure better pricing which is then passed on to the customer. Not only that but it helps them to shorten lead times meaning less time to get your operations up and moving.
Are you interested in learning how your operational throughput can increase by partnering with a vertically integrated company? We’re eager to answer your questions and discuss the benefits specific to your company.
