The Manufacturer Magazine : Promoting best practice in Manufacturing

Actaris, Job vacancies: The most illusive personnel

Manufacturing News, Source : The Manufacturer
Published : 14 Mar 2002 13:44

Operations directors, an endangered species

Three months ago, Actaris announced that it had acquired most of the former business interests of Schlumberger Resource Management Services in a leveraged buy-out aided by a French bank and venture capital. It simultaneously became the worldwide leader in multi-energy metering products and systems with a 25 per cent market share and 8000 employees in over 60 locations.

Now, it is gearing up to capitalise on the revolution that has taken place in the utility market place. Globalization, privatization and deregulation of markets have been changing the environment where utilities, municipalities and industry operate. Reducing losses, operating costs and total compliance with local specifications have become essential. More complex meters and a shift towards service orientated communication systems for utilities providers are an imperative need.

For a company on the scale of Actaris which has a turnover of $750 million, niche marketing is not the answer. "We are the biggest metering manufacturer world-wide and I believe unique in that we provide electricity, gas and water meters to meet the complete spectrum of domestic, industrial and commercial needs. Our aim is to be present in all areas of the utilities metering market," says Kevin Askew, operations manager at the Felixstowe plant, one of three European manufacturing sites producing electronic electricity meters.

"We are seeing electricity and gas suppliers moving into each others natural territory, for example traditional supply companies like London Electricity are now selling gas," he explains. "Previously, split product lines and offerings would be sold to separate utilities, the focus is now changing with bundled packages and cross utility offerings becoming more common place. We have shifted the focus of the business towards a 'one stop shop' approach. If a utility company is looking for just one requirement, in a competitive market it may find someone lower priced than us, but we are unmatched in our overall value and ability to pull together a total product range offering."

However, he explains that the product portfolio can never be truly complete. "There will always be gaps because the market is constantly evolving. What we are witnessing at the moment is a movement towards remote reading of meters so that the premises receiving the supply need never be visited." As a consequence, Actaris is looking towards developing further our existing systems based products. "A utility these days just wants to provide the energy supply, they don't want to be involved in mechanisms of collecting readings and billing so our sphere of operations is looking much more closely at data collection and number crunching. Collecting and managing the data remotely is also becoming much more cost effective."

Askew is eager to convey the importance of maintaining the reputation for total quality and reliability that has been established. The biggest selling point of Actaris is the quality and reliability of its product lines. "Everyone says they are aiming for total quality in their products but not everyone is producing a product that will still be working in 20 years time. You have to remember that the average lifecycle for an electronic product these days is five years, for a mobile phone it is two, but we expect our meters to last far beyond this." As a result, quality, he adds, has been built into the cultural fabric of the company.

Agility is another vital response in a fast moving, highly competitive market. "Being able to meet customer demand through our flexibility and ability to respond to very short order cycles is absolutely imperative. If we can't respond quickly enough, the business goes elsewhere and our systems are extremely agile in enabling rapid procurement," he goes on to explain, the market for meters is highly competitive and price is a major factor. "Years ago, they were seen as a technical product and ordering was handled by technical engineers. Now it is often the lowest cost offering that succeeds in the marketplace."

Actaris is fortunate in being able to leverage enormous purchasing power across its world-wide network. Global sourcing contracts enable it to compete effectively alongside the largest contract manufacturers against which it continuously benchmarks activities. "We have no right to survive," says Askew. "It is something that we earn by being competitive." He believes that few independent electronics contract manufacturers will be able to withstand the relentless downward pressure on costs that are a feature of the market. He explains that the manufacture of low cost lines are migrating to locations such as Indonesia and Hungary. The manufacture of more specialised, value added products remains concentrated in Europe.

The Felixstowe plant where Askew is based manufactures 200,000 meters and 600,000 metering pcb's per annum for other manufacturers within the group. It was the first site in the world to design and develop an electronic electricity meter for the purpose of pre-payment, thus guaranteeing the revenue stream of utilities providers. This has become a special area of focus at Felixstowe. "We have a full range of electrical and electro-mechanical processes surface mounting lines and conformal coating facilities but it is essentially similar plant to that which you would find with any contract manufacturer," he says. "We are hi tech, but not what I call state-of-the-art. Meters are a functional product. There is no need to push the boundaries back in the sense of making them smaller to fit in your pocket or having a mobile capability. The parts we place on our boards are also standard; we are not involved in micro-electronics like many hi tech companies. From a manufacturing perspective the real challenge for us is to make sure we do nothing to degrade the quality and reliability that has been designed into our products."

Comments on this story

click here to add a comment

Related Content