Securing critical stock before lead times slip.
Routeco Know How
At Routeco, we know that our expertise is one of our greatest strengths. Routeco Know How is how we share that knowledge, work together and use our experience to deliver better outcomes for our customers.
For Alex Makel, our purchasing team leader, that means bringing together knowledge from across Routeco, working collaboratively with colleagues and suppliers, and always looking for a way to solve a problem.
Our purchasing team plays a crucial, hands-on role in managing supply chains, supporting internal and external sales operations, and ensuring customers get the industrial automation and control products they need.
Alex joined Routeco as a warehouse operative in July 2017, including a stint as a process champion, before moving into a warehouse administrator role in 2019. From there, Alex joined customer services in 2020, followed by a move into purchasing as a coordinator in 2022. In August 2023, Alex stepped into his current role as purchasing team leader.
Alex joined Routeco as a warehouse operative in July 2017, including a stint as a process champion, before moving into a warehouse administrator role in 2019. From there, Alex joined customer services in 2020, followed by a move into purchasing as a coordinator in 2022. In August 2023, Alex stepped into his current role as purchasing team leader.
That experience across different teams has given Alex a valuable perspective on the business and, importantly, how each department contributes to the customer experience.
Routeco Know How means sharing our expertise in different ways. We all have different knowledge and skills, but we all want to achieve the same goal of customer satisfaction, and collaboratively, we work together and share our expertise to get the job done.
Purchasing plays an important role in keeping Routeco moving. From managing purchase orders and product queries to working with suppliers and supporting our software portal, no two days are quite the same.
For Alex, the key is making sure knowledge doesn't stay within one team. Whenever new processes or changes are introduced, the purchasing team discusses them internally before communicating them to our sales teams, both internal and external. This gives colleagues the opportunity to understand not only what is changing, but why.
Feedback from others is always welcomed, while any supply chain issues are shared so that everyone has the information they need to support customers effectively. When challenges arise, Alex and the purchasing team also work closely with Rockwell Automation to find solutions and resolve issues as quickly as possible.
Putting Routeco Know How into action
One example of this came when a customer experienced a number of faulty parts on their production line following a product notice from Rockwell Automation. Alex worked closely with a Routeco product sales specialist and Rockwell Automation to understand the issue and find a solution quickly. Rather than waiting for the normal process to take its course, Alex arranged replacement parts to be sent to the customer from Routeco stock, helping to minimise the amount of time their production line was down. At the same time, arrangements were made for some of the faulty parts to be returned for a Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA), helping identify the underlying cause of the fault.
It’s a good example of Routeco Know How in practice: using internal expertise, supplier relationships and collaboration to solve an immediate customer problem, while also helping understand the issue for the future.
Making things easier for our customers
Sometimes, delivering a great customer experience means finding a way through a process that doesn't quite work as expected. Alex recently dealt with an order that had come through without the required special pricing agreement attached. Rather than putting the responsibility back onto the customer, he went into the contract, made the necessary changes and processed what we call a workaround order. The result? The order could move forward with minimal customer involvement, keeping things simple for the customer while ensuring the order was processed correctly.
I like to give information in the way that I like to receive it. Any information that I have, I like to share, so that it improves everybody else's knowledge and improves others' capability to handle and resolve a situation in the future.
Knowledge that keeps growing
Alex’s experience across warehouse operations, customer services and purchasing means he has seen Routeco from several different perspectives. Now, he also gets to pass that experience on through his role as a team leader. He enjoys working alongside his team, developing their skills and helping them tackle challenges when they arise.
Alex thinks that's another important part of Routeco Know How: knowledge isn't something we keep to ourselves. It's something we share.
Whether it's helping a colleague understand a new process, working with a supplier to resolve a problem, or finding a way to make an order easier for a customer, expertise becomes more valuable when it is shared
Routeco Know How isn't just about knowing the answer. It's about sharing what you know, asking the right questions, working together and finding a way to get the job done.
That's how we turn expertise into action.
That's Routeco Know How.
