by Natalie Edwards

MJH Engineering, Wellington – Success Story

 

‘I doubted, I thought, nah this won't help us. It actually has.’

 

We visit the team at MJH Engineering and catch up with Bernard and Daniel about the impact QUICKSTOCK has had on their operations…

Tell us a bit about MJH Engineering…

 

'MJH, we're a big steel fabrication company, in lower North Island, Wellington. We are in Gracefield. Probably put up a huge percentage of Wellington's skyline. If you see it, we've done a lot of the bigger buildings in there. MJH stands for Malcolm John Hammond. He owns the company, started it, over 40 years ago now. Very successful.

 

We have 185-186 staff currently. It's divided into two divisions. We have the workshop, admin, drawing office. And from there, we have site teams. Site teams, they cover, most of Wellington. We have a lot of, a lot of teams out there.

 

We've have done jobs in Auckland. Steel comes in here, just in lengths of steel. It's manufactured painted, welded. Made so that it fits to the perfect dimensions that they need on site, that then taken off to site by our truck transport crew. It's unloaded and then our site team then get it. And from there they put up a magnificent building.

 

The staff stay here for a long time. And the reason we stay at MJH is because, the company looks after us. Sounds like an advert, but we take pride in our teamwork. We don't want to leave. I should have retired five years ago, but, here I am. I'm still here. So it's a great big happy family.'

Bernard McClelland, Health, Safety & Stores Manager

HOW DID YOU MANAGE CONSUMABLE INVENTORY BEFORE QUICKSTOCK?

 

Bernard: Well, before QUICKSTOCK, we didn't manage. Our store was a higgledy-piggledy mess. There were bits and pieces all around the place. You'd spend half your time trying to find where the, hunk of threaded rod is. Where a MIG tip is. Sometimes we would run out, and there's nothing worse, when you have got someone needing something now. So you have to, race around and bluff your way through it and say it's on order when it probably wasn't even on order.

 

Daniel: Before QUICKSTOCK, we had the storeman report back manually to what we needed to order. Report back to the office. So quite often things got missed and overlooked and, quite often we run out of stuff.

Daniel Clark, Storeman

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO USE QUICKSTOCK?

 

Bernard: Initially I thought, I don't know if we want that sort of stuff. It's such a pain in the neck. There's got to be a catch to it.

 

But on investigation, talking to the rep reading all the literature, it ticked all our boxes. So we thought, well, we're getting a new store built. Let's bring this in while we do.

 

And, it's just revolutionised it.

HOW DOES THE QUICKSTOCK SYSTEM WORK WITH YOUR OPERATIONS?

 

Daniel: So here's our QUICKSTOCK set up behind me. The way it works is that our engineers and fabricators, they approach the store, tell us what they need myself or one of the storemen come to the cabinets. We give it to them. And then they're back on the floor doing their work quickly.

 

Bernard: To keep staff from turning up all the time though, we have put, other cabinets around our other workshops. The supervisors in the workshops, they look after them. And so we load these with the stock, and they, booked it out from there rather than people going for their little walks and half an hour smoke here and there. So we've done this.

WHAT WERE SOME OF THE COSTS INVOLVED IN ORDERING BEFORE QUICKSTOCK?

 

Daniel: I was having to place orders every day via the website. We get about 50-60% of our welding consumables from QUICKSTOCK, so it's definitely freed up a lot of my time in the office to do other things.

 

Bernard: Financially we're not paying for freight and that cuts a huge amount out, and made us more efficient. I would say 200-300% more efficient. Because it's there when you need it, when you want it. And, Euromarc, they do all my, stock ordering for me, so we don't run out of stock.

WOULD YOU SAY QUICKSTOCK HAS IMPROVED YOUR BUSINESS?

 

Bernard: We've saved a lot of time and, a lot of money by doing it.

 

When Euromarc come in to replenish, our cabinets. It saved us so much grief I guess would be the best word. The cabinet restorer, he comes in and he fills them up once a month, with what was being used over the last month. Our administration staff, my store people and me, we're all happy because I don't have a thousand invoices anymore. We just get it all put on one invoice, which is amazing.

 

Daniel: I definitely think QUICKSTOCK has improved our business. Just making sure we've got everything at our fingertips and never running out of anything is a big relief and a weight off my shoulders really.

 

WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THE QUICKSTOCK SOLUTION TO OTHER ENGINEERING COMPANIES?

 

Bernard: Yeah, I would recommend it to other companies up and down New Zealand. Hey, it saves us time. It is cheaper using it. It just makes things easier for your company.

 

I doubted, I thought, nah this won't help us. It actually has.

 

Daniel: It runs itself really. Euromarc they do everything for us. It's so handy.

 

We love it. The boys love it. And, yeah, the biscuits are a bit of a bonus too.