How do we get the best from suppliers

I know we in the UK have to build better train quality but that is hard to afford if suppliers are only ever reacting to stop/go ordering rather than a steady reliable stream of orders. Once you have a reliable customer you can then spend more money and time on design.

The traction motor used on the Southern until the latest generation of units was the EE507. It was a very good piece of kit that was arrived at because the old Southern railway worked with English Electric to improve the design. English Electric were secure in the knowledge that there would be plenty of follow on orders. On the other side the Southern had an incentive to WORK WITH their supplier as they did-not/could-not choose another supplier. Granted the EE507 time has now passed.

Having an exclusive contract can make a supplier complacent but that is mitigated by customer and supplier working/talking together.

Having competition gets rid of the complacency but intruduces cynicism. If I supplier sees no potential for steady orders then the supplier will maximise profit on the order currently in front of them. Competition is the cowards way out. It suits accountants and politicians who KNOW VERY LITTLE about the actual products involved.

I am not sure but I get the impression that a lot of European manufacturers seem to have a more reliable stream of orders from their own country so can offer a better (by-)product to the UK. Thats why we make so little here in the UK. We just screw are own suppliers because we are too lazy to plan it better ourselves. Its called profit before people and it leads to good share dividends but in the end we have to pay tax to keep unemployed people at home rather than making something.

(I cut this out of my post in a thread regarding the old slammers.)

privitisation did the damage to the UK industry, in two steps:
Step 1: the famous 1000 days without an order, between the start of the privisitsation process and the companies finally taking over. British Rail were prevented from ordering any new stock (bringing to an end the NSE Networker program) whilst the shadow franchises were set up
Step 2: the headlong rush to replace the elderly slam door stock, both in the NSE area and elsewhere (all those 1st gen DMUs that were still running, and local loco-hauled, for example) in one big go, both to get rid of trainbs that were perceived as dangerous and to show that the private railways was forward thinking and investing heavily in the future, not trying to sweat the assets of the past.

As you have noted, continuity is better. Continuity, with continuous improvement, would have possibly delivered higher quality products, and kept business in the UK- especially if the government had read the EU rules on tendering properly to favour UK based manufacturers. It wouldn't of course have stopped the factories being bought out by the French, Candians etc.

Peter Sarf said:

I know we in the UK have to build better train quality but that is hard to afford if suppliers are only ever reacting to stop/go ordering rather than a steady reliable stream of orders. Once you have a reliable customer you can then spend more money and time on design.

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OJEU rules make this very difficult - almost everything has to go through a tender exercise. There are ways you can extend existing contracts or show that only one company can supply a suitable product or word a very tight tender document but it would be very difficult to simply "get into bed" with one supplier for everything without first going to the market placve

Peter Sarf said:

The traction motor used on the Southern until the latest generation of units was the EE507. It was a very good piece of kit that was arrived at because the old Southern railway worked with English Electric to improve the design. English Electric were secure in the knowledge that there would be plenty of follow on orders. On the other side the Southern had an incentive to WORK WITH their supplier as they did-not/could-not choose another supplier. Granted the EE507 time has now passed.

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The world has changed thanks in part to EU legislation. You could get away with some of this by working with your existent supplier to improve the product but ultimately you have to go to the market place. At a basic level how do you know you are getting the best product or the best value for money?

Peter Sarf said:

Having an exclusive contract can make a supplier complacent but that is mitigated by customer and supplier working/talking together.

Having competition gets rid of the complacency but intruduces cynicism. If I supplier sees no potential for steady orders then the supplier will maximise profit on the order currently in front of them. Competition is the cowards way out. It suits accountants and politicians who KNOW VERY LITTLE about the actual products involved.

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Disagree (and with respect very naive) - we need to drive down price as per the McNulty Report! Suppliers have done very well out of the railways for years and it was time some commercial realism was injected in to the contractual relationships. Exclusive contracts without competition or testing will result in bad value and will be unlikely to meet with legislative requirements.

Do you honestly think the supplier will simply agree the best and fairest deal and not try to screw you into the floor for every penny once the contract is signed because they know you cant go elsewhere?

Peter Sarf said:

I am not sure but I get the impression that a lot of European manufacturers seem to have a more reliable stream of orders from their own country so can offer a better (by-)product to the UK. Thats why we make so little here in the UK. We just screw are own suppliers because we are too lazy to plan it better ourselves. Its called profit before people and it leads to good share dividends but in the end we have to pay tax to keep unemployed people at home rather than making something.

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Not sure quite how that fits in with the above! European suppliers have a wider market for railway products. Almost everything for the UK is bespoke. That costs more in design and manufacturing costs. We have no train builders in this country because for the first few years of privatization nothing got ordered killing off almost everybody.

Finally, surely the essence of a capitalist society IS competition between businesses to supply products to other businesses in exchange for money.

I think you are all looking at this from a very recent perspective. Most British manufacturers of rolling stock were the railway companies themselves and as such there was no competition of any sort for the majority of orders.

The independent manufacturers relied very heavily on export orders (and LT) for their business. The export markets British companies were strongest in were unsurprisingly the colonies and later commonwealth countries. As a result their continuity of business had little or nothing to do with british railways.

British Rail's procurement policies in the 50s and 60s seemed to be about continuity of work in its own workshops to the exclusion of commercial and industrial logic with the results the companies in a position to grow a long term sustainable business were feeding of the scraps and eventually went broke or were swallowed up by the big world players as the traditional markets fell to the bigger players.

I look at it from a prospective of what is legal, today. What occurred in the past is all very nice and collegiate but can’t happen today because of the changes in legislation.

It doesnt help that we seem to order say, 400 carriages, then no more for a long time. Just look at pendolinos, we got some, then 10 years alter we are getting some more. this means we can only order mainly off the shelf designs as otherwise when we order some more the manufacturer wont have the jigs in the case we had a bespoke design.

At work we have been building engines from the same design for 30 years, this is because we have had continuous orders, so we are able to keep the jigs and supports. furthermore, every few years the engines need an overhaul, this means we have the skills to strip and rebuild within our remanufacture department. Unfortunately this is not the case in rolling stock, with trains being maintained in-house, then sent off to another manufacture for heavy refurbishment.