George Utz Ltd has been well known for many years for providing injection-moulded storage solutions to British industry, but in 2008 a significant and growing part of its business is providing custom products tailored to specific customers’ operations. As materials handling processes become increasingly automated, George Utz Ltd is called on more and more to provide specialist technical advice about the best storage products for particular applications, and work with systems integrators to develop solutions for complex materials handling operations. This has prompted the formation of a dedicated solutions team within the George Utz Ltd business that focuses on understanding customers’ exact requirements and ensuring customer-specific products are organised and delivered on time. Warehouse & Logistics News went to George Utz Ltd in Derbyshire to find out more.
Located in Alfreton, north of Derby, George Utz Ltd’s premises houses its best products. Mr Georg Utz founded the business bearing his name in Switzerland in 1947, and today the Georg Utz Group employs over 750 staff worldwide and turns over 150m Euros. George Utz Ltd – the ‘Georg’ is anglicised for the UK – opened its UK sales office in 1990 and began production at Alfreton in 2002 with a purpose-built factory, The Utz Group’s newest in Europe.
George Utz Ltd’s major UK product families are containers and inserts, pallets, dollies and pallet boxes. The Utz Group produces 1,100 standard and 4,000 customer-specific products. Customer-specific solutions come into play if a standard product can’t deliver the required dimensions, features or performance for a customer’s needs. Injection moulding and thermoforming are the main means of producing customer solutions, but George Utz Ltd can also adapt standard products as required, including by mirror welding, extending or shortening standard containers.
George Utz Ltd’s UK custom products solutions team are Adam Fox, Automated Materials Handling Specialist and Jason Parkin, Sales Project Manager. They work as a very close team. Adam is customer-facing, spending time with end users, automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) integrators and consultants while Jason, the company’s internal products specialist, progresses incoming enquiries and provides the appropriate response. Supporting Jason and Adam are a Design Engineer, a Costing Manager and a Production Manager, all reporting to the UK General Manager, Carsten Diekmann
In some manufacturing companies, special projects are poor cousins to the standard products business in terms of resources allocated, but not here. Jason explains: “With 80% of our UK business being customer-specific, I have plenty of access to resources when organising projects.
“We have always offered customer-specific solutions, but demand has increased significantly since we started production at Alfreton. Now, with the establishment of our dedicated team, we are a well oiled custom solutions machine with the best offering on the market.”
The UK – a land of opportunity
“The UK is one of the The Utz Group’s fastest growing European markets, with plenty of exciting opportunities. We have many blue chip UK customers, who have ordered hundreds of thousands of tailored containers in recent years. We’ve built the customer-specific business through word of mouth, but we’re now addressing the opportunity in targeted sectors with the new team.”
Georg Utz’s Swiss HQ in Bremgarten, near Zurich, is the group’s world centre for excellence. The UK is autonomous but can call on Swiss help as required, as happened recently with a project for specialised home delivery container.
The Utz Group is committed to developing its UK business and has invested substantially in New Product Development (NPD) at Alfreton, including major expansion of the injection moulding production with state of the art machinery. Warehousing on site for standard products ensures fast deliveries from stock for most small to medium orders dispatched within 24 hours.
Unlike the industry model, The Utz Group’s strategy is to establish local markets first, then local production: hence the vast majority of injection moulding and vacuum forming for the UK now happens here. Creating products near the customer allows the best possible solution at the most competitive price, under localised control.
“As a classic example,” says Adam Fox, “if we make tailored products here for a major supermarket, then as they expand into Eastern Europe, we can supply them there from our Polish factory. Because we design and make our own tooling and products, we can offer customised products without starting from scratch each time. If the same solution is required elsewhere, we simply move the tools there.”
The clear choice for innovation
George Utz Ltd’s biggest sector for standard products is the automotive industry, followed by retail then distribution, where its key offerings are Euro containers and space saving containers for nesting and stacking.
Globally the group is market leader in postal sales and supplies many international services, led by Deutsche Post and Swiss Post. Here too, The Utz Group’s innovative flair has brought major success. When La Post (France) wanted an 800x600mm collapsible container, Jason Parkin recalls, “A competitor offered an existing product but we won the order for 220,000 of these items because our new design was more innovative, robust and quicker to assemble and disassemble. Having been in service for 18 months, the actual product has exceeded all expectations in terms of performance and reliability. This success story was presented at an international conference by Utz and La Poste at the postal exhibition POST-EXPO in London.”
Uniquely in Switzerland, The Utz Group has its own pooling company, POOLTEC, offering the Swiss postal service and various retailers a total service covering everything from supplying containers to washing, relabeling and repairing, with millions of containers in the system. Elsewhere, The Utz Group supplies containers to Europe’s leading container pooling organisations.
In the UK, demand is growing strongly for George Utz Ltd’s products for use in automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS). Adam Fox: “We have a good range of standard products for automated systems to meet most requirements. These include our Eurotec containers, which handle loads up to 100kg, are supplied with a variety of bases compatible with conveyors, and have different points to grip and handle.”
Recycling and setting standards
The life of Utz products can span to decades which denote them as long-term assets and they are completely recyclable. In the UK this happens at either the company’s in-house facilities at Alfreton or with a mobile re-grinder at the customer’s site.
With customers frequently requesting containers with absolute maximum volume, The Utz Group is looking at base materials beyond polypropylene (PP) and other oil-based plastics: “We’ve recently supplied a customer with containers made from a mix of polypropylene, and hemp or wood, for an application where the internal dimensions had to be maximised and the container had to be as light yet as strong as possible. Producing such solutions more frequently will mean we can offer economies of scale.”
The Utz Group is committed to working with industry bodies to help set standards. In the UK it is a member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT). The European business is part of the German vehicle manufacturers’ trade association (VDA), which has certified its automotive product range (KLT). The Utz Group also supports European industry standards bodies DIN and CEN with product test data and advice in their working groups.
A different approach
George Utz Ltd is ultimately successful in the UK, says Jason Parkin, “because of our attention to ‘best in class’ design and manufacturing. We make a great effort to understand the total usage cycle of the proposed solution, from factory gate to final recycling. Automated storage and retrieval systems are major drivers for many of our customer-specific products, as they allow system providers to offer advantageous solutions that go beyond standard items. ASRS adoption is still growing here, and most of our products end up being used in some sort of automated system.”
Adam Fox backs him up: “Adopting automation generally requires huge investment. In the current climate bigger customers are thinking longer term, and increased automation is highly attractive. Most customers are here for the long haul, and see buying our products for use in their supply chain as a long term investment. Being a financially secure, privately owned company, we can ensure that we will be here in 20 years to supply the same product at the same quality.”
“Customised products can actually turn out lower priced than standard products,” says Jason Parkin,” because we make standard products to a consistently high spec, which might not be appropriate for particular applications. Customised products often have added value benefits like saving space, content protection or retail security, bringing a clear economic return. In the current climate well-priced products alone aren’t enough. Our new solutions team means we can supply customers 100% efficiently. People come back because we get it right first time.”
George Utz Ltd can supply customer-specific products in any colour and with any logo. They use the most advanced technology for branding, including in-mould labelling, which allows inclusion of high-quality graphics. Self-adhesive bar code labels and RFID tags are generally used for ID purposes, but for security purposes Utz can add bar codes or embed RFID tags at moulding stage.
Warehousing and logistics solutions
“We’ve always concentrated on being a world leading solutions provider, rather than on standard products. We design and manufacture our own tools, and being privately owned and financially stable, have the utmost confidence that our solutions will be available for years to come, unlike some of our competitors who may well disappear. Our highly flexible thermoforming technology allows us to meet orders as small as 50 custom pieces, unlike the thousands of pieces typical of injection moulding.
George Utz Ltd has provided large-scale tailored solutions for Boots, Argos and Screwfix. Jason gives the details: “Boots placed one of our single largest orders, involving design and manufacture of many thousands of containers and lids for their new automated DC at Beeston, Nottingam. Screwfix initially ordered a similarly large quantity, increasing with each reorder as they launch their trade counters alongside their next day delivery internet business.”
Having recently increased its injection moulding capacity, George Utz Ltd is well placed for the foreseeable future: “We have plenty of space on site for expansion, and have a new scheme to train apprentices in production, development, sales and marketing.”
Serving your requirements
George Utz Ltd’s sales process starts with a visit to the customer’s site to establish the criteria using a detailed checklist, ensuring the requirements are established correctly and efficiently from the beginning. “It often turns out that only slight modifications to a standard product are required to create the required solution,” says Jason. “If a customer-specific product is needed, the in-house team produce 3D drawings to present to the customer, then produce prototypes to show fit and function, followed by finalising product design and tooling, all within our control.”
As part of his role, Jason Parkin produces a project plan, detailing key milestones. Quotes and concepts can be ready in a few days, depending on the complexity and quality of brief.
Following any necessary modifications to the mould, the tooling is hardened, ensuring George Utz Ltd can make products within the highest tolerances. Production then takes place to an agreed schedule.
The Utz Group’s commitment to quality has brought many prizes, says Adam Fox: “One of our most interesting accolades is the Swiss Star Award, for our injection-moulded, retail-ready banana tray. This is very impressive, with its large curved section clearly showing its purpose. We also won a World Star Award for our KLAPA GLT-plus foldable pallet box. Our most recent trophy is a German Packaging Award, for our container for high-value anti-friction bearings.”
“The good news for our customers is that because we manufacture locally, we pass on savings on transport costs. UK-based production eliminates the need to transport European-made goods to customers here. We also pass on in our prices the benefits of the pound’s relative position against other currencies.
“We’re uniquely placed to grow our business, whatever the market conditions. There’s real excitement in our business that we’re the right company at the right time. Unlike many competitors, we’re very confident about market share growth: as a UK-based manufacturer, even though our quality is best in class, we’re still competitively priced and will remain so.”
Long term, says Adam Fox, the UK customer-specific market will continue to grow, and so will George Utz Ltd as a provider of these solutions:
“We are actively taking the customer-specific message to the wider audience, and ensuring all potential buyers grasp what we can offer. As visitors to the Logistics Link exhibition at Doncaster this month will know, we have just launched a new website, which captures the essence of our standard range and our capability to provide custom products. Once the customer has an idea about how we can help them, we can turn it into reality.”
George Utz Ltd
Tel: 01773 543170
Email: clare.leeland@uk.georgutz.com
www.georgutz.com
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