Tex FOCUS Team Beat Chinese Competition

TEX Plastic Products in Barnstaple has secured a major new order for the manufacture of Industrial Castor Wheels.

Orders for this market are raised with very short notice. Traditionally our client would place initial orders in the UK to meet the short lead time, in parallel orders would also be raised with their Chinese supplier who needed a 12 week window for first deliveries to the UK. As soon this deliveries landed the UK supply chain was stopped and supplies continued from China for the balance of the order.

The Chinese supply was not our customers preferred route because of obvious logistical issues and resource to resolve technical and quality issues but commercial pressures dictated their decision.

Through our proactive FOCUS strategy Tex worked with our client in a cost reduction programme for a range of their castor fleet. Tex sourced alternative less expensive polymers and presented alternative methods of manufacture as well as managing part of the supply chain on behalf of our client.

Our FOCUS resulted in not only securing a piece part selling price reduction but significantly reduced the total cost of the whole supply chain. These savings were sufficient to secure UK manufacture at Tex for the total balance of the order.

Our customers Purchasing Manager quoted “The FOCUS approach has resulted in a significant change in direction for our sourcing policy, we now have the assurance of a competitive local supply with associated benefits.”