Today's manufacturing leaders and plant managers are looking to extend the performance of their production assets, just as consumers are waiting another year to buy a new car or washing machine. A majority say they would outsource non-core functions, specifically, the maintenance of their production machinery and assets, in order to bolster against recession, according to a survey by Advanced Technology Services Inc. (ATS), conducted with Nielsen Research.
In the survey of 100 U.S. senior manufacturing executives, with titles of chief executive officer, chief information officer, vice president and plant manager, two-thirds said they would outsource maintenance as a hedge against a down turn in the economy.
The plant asset maintenance market, dedicated to the care and keeping of these assets, is sized at $124 billion and growing by analyst firm Frost and Sullivan. Strategic factory maintenance has become an imperative when access to credit is tight, new orders are down, and businesses must put off making new capital purchases.
Manufacturers like Eaton, Honeywell, Service Heat Treating and others have already adopted this recession-hedging strategy. By implementing lean strategies, eliminating hidden waste and flexing with a customer's changing business needs, ATS has provided an avenue for these manufacturers to defer capital expenditures and be better prepared to hit the ground running when the economy does recover.
"ATS has helped our factory run better", said Glenn Kormanik, vice president and general manager of Service Heat Treating of Milwaukee. "Our plans for growth would have been stopped in their tracks had we not begun to implement a world class maintenance program with ATS. Doing so has helped us to compete for what little business there is today but also ensure we're able to meet increased demand once the recession is past."
"Companies are being forced to reexamine how they're doing things to gain more efficiency from their manufacturing assets during this recession," said Jeffrey Owens, president of ATS. "Outsourcing the care and service of their most valuable assets to ATS enables them to improve productivity, reduce costs and ultimately extend the life of those assets. That's where we add value and help contribute to our customers' bottom line, in both challenging and good economic times."
The ATS white paper, Why Outsourcing Maintenance is Your Best Hedge in A Down Economy, provides guidance on what companies can do now to extend the performance of their factory assets and prepare for economic recovery. Visit www.advancedtech.com to obtain a copy.
About ATS
Founded in 1985, ATS employs over 2,200 people across the U.S. and is a member of the National Association of Manufacturers. ATS is headquartered in Peoria, Ill., with offices and services centers located in Greenville, S.C.; Chicago; Detroit; Monterrey, Mexico; Puerto Rico; the United Kingdom; and China.