PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2014

AFTER SALES SERVICE 38 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 10/14 www.petpla.net Service performance – Key measure for equipment sourcing Investments in machinery are frequently made on the basis of a whole spectrum of deci- sion criteria. In addition to the price/performance ratio, however, ‘soft’ factors such as the sound nature of the supplier relationship, operational reliability of the plant/lines and the supplier’s performance in terms of service are often of crucial importance too. Hitherto there have been very few solid insights paving the way to under- standing the decision to purchase machinery against the background of the specified ‘soft’ criteria. Reason enough for PETPlanet to undertake a more in-depth examination of the drinks packaging market in the form of a questionnaire. The plastics technol- ogy team at the Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany, whose mem- bers have a wide range of experience of the machine / plastics packaging and beverages industries, carried out the study which is described below. The focal point of the survey was to assess the quality of the service provided by the machine manufactur- ers in the PET packaging technol- ogy sector. The questionnaire was addressed to approx. 1,000 partici- pants in 334 companies. Packaging materials manufacturers (bottles, preforms, closure caps) were also included, as were bottling/filling com- panies and beverages companies (Fig. 1). Fig. 1 Primary focus of business Special attention was paid to 102 countries with rapidly growing markets but which are not classified as major industrial nations of the western world. The objective of one online question- naire was to assess customer prefer- ences in respect of the after sales ser- vice policies of machinery suppliers and to appraise the level of service provided by PET packaging systems manufacturers. Various detailed questions were asked about these aspects in particu- lar. The following contains a summary and explanation of the results. Fig. 2 Magagement levels Various levels of management and employees were addressed within the companies questioned (Fig.2). The questionnaire was distributed in seven languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian and Arabic) with the aim of covering dif- ferent levels of employment within the company. This enabled those partici- pating in the questionnaire to select their preferred language right from the start. 65% opted for English, after that came Spanish at around 12%, followed by Russian, Chinese and Portuguese with 7% each. The share of Arabic and French questionnaires amounted to only 1%. The data was collected in the period from January to February 2014. Taking part were a total of 233 companies. The response rate of approx. 70% enables us to draw meaningful conclusions from the questionnaire. It has to be said that there were numerous instances where the responses might usefully have been more comprehensive, but the online dwell time of 18min spent on average by participants completing the survey was encouraging. In terms of job function within the company (Fig. 2), 42% of responses came from operations managers followed by technical managers on 32%. Both these categories play a major role in investment decisions. A further 16% of responses were from supply managers who are also heav- ily involved in decision-making. The participants in the study cannot be assigned directly to a specific branch and/or a specific field of technology and this increases the general appli- cability of the statements. The question about the category of the equipment and suppliers also cov- ered PET preform manufacture (Fig. 4.1.1), drinks closure cap manufacture (Fig. 4.2.1), PET bottle manufacture (Fig. 4.3.1) and filler/bottling plants (Fig. 4.4.1). The distribution of the vari- ous brands is certainly representative, although the same cannot necessarily be said about claims of market share. A f t e r S a l e s Service