Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world. Our nearest Capital City, Adelaide, is over 2600 km away by road, and it’s not even as big as Perth. For a decent size city you need to look to Melbourne, a mere 3423 km away, 36 hours driving at the speed limit, without stopping.
Why the primary school geography lesson? Recently, I’ve had a couple of instances of new clients coming to me that had been purchasing and shipping filters from companies in the east. Yep – thousands and thousands of kilometres away, off a greater than 14 day lead time with a fill rate in the 70 per cent range. Wonder why they were looking for a new local supplier? I wouldn’t take that sort of delivery or fill rate from any of my suppliers. I couldn’t run my business with supply figures like that. Turns out they couldn’t either. My clients demand single-digit lead times and we can supply in that timeframe because we keep the stock on our shelf in Perth. We can also ship that very day in emergency situations.
I’m not here to cast aspersions on anyone’s purchasing rationale. Good decisions are made based on good knowledge. Not everyone has the best knowledge at the time they make a decision. This is one of our key aims for our blog posts – to make sure every purchasing officer, supply superintendent and head of contracts has all the best information on which to make their purchasing decisions.
I’ll say this till I’m blue in the face, but, if your filter supplier can sell you toilet rolls and a windscreen for a truck, they aren’t a specialist. They are the Bunnings or Coles of the filtration world. If they are doing those things cheaper than the competition then you’re paying somewhere else, or will be shortly. Sure, things might go well while you are just ordering part numbers from them. Anyone can do that. The times you need a filter specialist are when something goes wrong on-site and you need 3 months worth of stock on one order, or there is a train derailment that interrupts their supply chain. Or you ask them for the element that is the same as one they are supplying currently, but with a lower micron rating and a higher differential pressure rating, or in 25-micron mesh. Usually, these companies call us for this information, or this supply because they just don’t have the knowledge or experience in their own staff, and they don’t have the stock either.
Filter Supplies is a bit like that specialist butcher you go to that has the really good cuts of meat, that make their own sausages or cure their own bacon. You can get all those things at Coles or Woolies, but do they have that Tomahawk Wagyu or that perfect bit of brisket?
I’m asking the same purchasing officers, supply superintendents and contract managers what the safety and security of your filtration supply is worth? Are you willing to trust your operation to a company that has no applied knowledge in the products they are selling you? The same companies that have to go to their competition to ask questions they should know the answers to themselves?
If you are, then I’m surprised you’ve read this far. Filter Supplies is the oldest and largest independent filter specialist in Australia. With good reason, filters are all we do.
