SEPTEMBER 2019 THE INTERVIEW
business – we have to be much more digitally
focused in everything we do. If you look at the
traditional purchasing journey, by the time we’re
engaging with the customer, they’re a lot further
through that journey than they historically
would have been, because they now have a lot
more information readily available to them.
Not only has their insight gone up, but so has
their expectation, especially around service and
delivery. People are now used to going online,
finding an item and having it delivered the next,
or even the same, day. They’re now bringing
those expectations into the workplace. People
today have less time, so information needs to
be snappy and relevant. That’s why when we’re
exploring the value-add solutions and moving
away from just being a catalogue full of bits that
can be bought easily elsewhere. Next-day delivery
has moved from being something that would
set you apart to something that is expected by
everyone. People now want instant access to
stock and even same-day delivery.
MM: Have you seen any impact from
Industry 4.0?
PM: Everybody now understands the potential
of Industry 4.0. What may be lacking is the
clarity around how to maximise that potential.
It’s great if you’re building a new, purpose-built
factory from scratch, but that doesn’t happen very
often. Most manufacturers have legacy plants,
with legacy equipment, which isn’t enabled as a
smart factory. While the lower cost of sensors
means retrofitting is a viable option, it’s still a
long journey for many. If you rewind and look
at ‘old-school’ RS, it was very much a reliable
distress supplier – if a piece of equipment failed,
the owner could ring up RS and get a new part
quickly. As products become more intelligent and
the insight we get from the plant and machinery
grows, we can go from a reactive maintenance
strategy to a more predictive one. The benefits of
that for the end user are obvious: reduced costs,
no fire-fighting and less downtime. That’s our
vision for Industry 4.0.
As the Fourth Industrial Revolution takes hold,
RS Components is seeing products – and
customer demand – become more sophisticated
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