Hey, look at us!
A fresh new look for Engineering Capacity
Like the best subcontractors, we try and embrace continuous improvement, but sometimes there is a need for a step change too. So look out for something a bit different when you pick up this month’s copy of Engineering Capacity.
We have introduced a new type face which should be clearer and easier to read – especially if, like me, you find it hard to accept that you really do need reading glasses – and have sharpened up the layout to make it easier to see at a glance the stories that matter most to you. And we have a nice new front cover design, with a picture rather than an advert. This is not only more attractive to look at, but it stops people confusing us with the advertiser and asking us to quote them for components.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the name. OK, you could easily argue that it is an anachronism, and that subcontracting today is about dedicated specialists offering a professional, end-to-end manufacturing service. But we have been Engineering Capacity for fifty years now and people have got used to it.
In today’s economic climate, where capital is hard to come by and forward visibility cloudy, you need to be able to react quickly to win new orders and stay ahead of the market. To do that, and avoid the financial risk of investing in new plant or taking on staff, the fast and flexible approach is to turn to a subcontractor.
They can take the risk of changing production volumes. They can achieve the economies of scale to make sophisticated, and expensive, production equipment pay its way. And because they are doing it all the time as their core business, they are experts on making your products as quickly and cheaply as possible to the quality you require.
Today subcontracting is not really about manufacturers with under-utilised machines renting out extra capacity, or even to any great extent about manufacturers buying in extra capacity to supplement their own production equipment. Subcontracting today is about companies making strategic decisions as to what they want to focus on as core business, and what can be done more efficiently and profitably by someone else.
But despite all that, the name stays. As the only magazine that only focuses on subcontract manufacturing services – and the only one that recognises it is not a sub-set of production engineering or an offshoot of the machine tool industry – we have a reputation and a name we are proud of. After all, you don’t expect the Daily Mail to deliver your post, do you?
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