Helping warehouses meet increasing demand
A global technology customer brought their challenge to us to – improve the longevity of the robots provided to their customer’s warehouse, to save cost and waste.
Meet Naveen, General Manager, Rockford site
What’s your role at IMI?
At our plant in Illinois, customer intimacy is the name of the game. We live this value every day through the way we listen and collaborate with our customers.
When have you helped to solve a customer’s problem?
One of our customers wanted to eliminate back injuries for their people who load materials on and off trucks. Unfortunately, lots of the materials needed to do this were subject to global shortages. I’m particularly proud of the way we worked around this problem to minimise the impact of these significant global material shortages on the customer. We worked closely with the customer to identify exactly what material was needed and investigated possible substitutions. We tested these out to find a way to move forward with their product without compromising the quality. This dedication to keeping things moving reduced lead times for their materials hugely (by up to 12 weeks in some cases!) and limited the impact on their business.
What did you learn from this experience?
How important it is to really listen to the customer. Having a close, collaborative relationship with our customer meant we were able to learn more about exactly what they needed – we quickly realised that some of the materials just couldn’t be substituted. This saved time.
What do you feel most proud of?
The energy in the team is amazing – everyone comes together to find the best solution for often very demanding problems, and we pride ourselves on giving an incredible customer service; helping to create a better world.