Define a Customer

The customer has a central role in making a company both productive and ‘green’. It is important to bear that in mind when committing to adopt an ethical approach to the world’s resources while also making a profit and providing sustainable jobs.

Productivity starts from understanding our purpose. AES Engineering’s purpose (and that of AESSEAL and AVT Reliability) is “to give customers such exceptional service that they need never consider alternative sources of supply.”

Let’s start by defining a customer.

There are internal customers who need to serve each other so they can serve the ones who pay our bills – the external customers. Both are important.

The purpose of productivity enhancements is to serve our internal and external customers better. We do this by removing every repetitive, dull, boring, and unnecessary human intervention. 

We do this so people can do what no machine will ever do. People can be emotional, feel, create, sing, dance, motivate, manipulate, cajole, be friendly, charismatic, and be fun to hang out with. 

People always do business with people. Productivity enhancements give them more quality time to do business with more people.

An important element of productivity is understanding the difference between direct and indirect labour costs. 

There is a huge difference in the effort involved in producing standard products that have already been designed and which machines are already set up to manufacture; and on the other hand, modifying or designing special products to order.

The case study below is drawn from AESSEAL, our largest and best-known global brand, and therefore refers to the production of mechanical seals which are used by pumps and rotating equipment worldwide. 

For a standard seal, the design, technical and management time is a past investment that you are now profiting from. This means that the time cost of machining the seal of a little over half an hour is what enters the productivity calculation. 

Contrast that with the 30 hours of the design, technical and management time needed to create a special seal – which you may never make again. The impact on productivity is clear. 

It takes in the region of 50 times more direct and indirect labour to produce a Special as opposed to a Standard product. No customer is willing to pay the real price.

Of course, if you can convert the special order into a standard seal and win new customers this makes perfect sense. However, the consequences of not getting the balance right can be disastrous for productivity and profitability.

In upcoming articles I’ll look at how you can make your people even more productive - and more content - by investing in them and giving them the tools that they need to succeed.

Note: “Define a Customer” is the first in a series of four bite-sized articles commissioned by the Betterworld Solutions project to share information on sustainable business practices, with a special emphasis on encouraging global industry to prioritize investments that favour the environment. 

Don’t miss the upcoming articles in the series:

Train to Win

Stay on Top of Technology 

Get Emotional

AES Engineering is a global group headquartered in Rotherham in the United Kingdom that makes and sells high performance mechanical seals and provides reliability services to industry worldwide. 

Our main global brands are AESSEAL^® and AVT Reliability. We serve industrial sectors ranging from food and beverage to mining, oil and gas, pulp and paper, chemicals, and everything in between. Our highly engineered seals help the pumps and rotating equipment at the heart of almost all industries to work more cleanly and productively, with less harm to the environment.

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