Driving MRO efficiency
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Powering efficiency

Renewable power firm Infinis is driving procurement efficiencies with the help of RS

As one of the UK’s largest generators of renewable power (through landfill gas to electricity and wind farms), Infinis must always be focused on operational excellence so that its business is as efficient as possible. One key area where the company looks to drive efficiencies is through procurement, in particular MRO procurement.
 
“Procurement is key to the business,” says Julia Close, Senior Buyer at Infinis. “It contributes a significant spend to the bottom line, so we need to make sure our supply chain is efficient. We drive service levels and value for money, and make sure that our operations team have the goods and services on time.”
 
"RS asks the right questions, understands the supply chain and the overall business strategy, and then we work together towards long-term improvement"Julia close, Senior Buyer, Infinis
 
Infinis believe the secret to making these sorts of improvements is through different teams in the business interacting and cooperating. “Collaboration has always been key to Infinis,” adds Close. “Our operations guys are experts in their field, so we’re always working with them when we’re developing our supply chain.”
 
As one of Infinis’s trusted suppliers, RS also works with the company to help identify and reduce unnecessary costs in the MRO process, particularly when it comes to unplanned maintenance. “As with any business we have unscheduled events and for Infinis to repair these as quickly as possible, procurement needs to deal with suppliers such as RS in order to ensure parts and services are sent to site as soon as possible,” explains Ben Mabbott, assistant regional manager at Infinis.
 
RS is working closely with Infinis on two key areas to drive greater efficiency: firstly, standardising products in all sites across a number of regions, which has allowed the company to consolidate its supply base and cut spending. Secondly, RS has introduced an eProcurement trial to automate the procurement process and streamline the purchase-to-pay system.
 
“We do roughly 25,000 orders per year and we expect that about 2,000 of those will be with RS, so there should be a significant soft cost saving if we implement eProcurement across the business.” says Close.
 
Both the eProcurement trial and work to standardise products are the result of discussions between Infinis’s procurement department and the team at RS. “The secret to good procurement is the procurement team understanding the business processes and strategies in full, and then working with suppliers who do the same,” says Close. “So RS comes in, asks the right questions, understands the supply chain and the overall business strategy, and then we can work together towards long-term improvement.”