Seamless transition

Profile 22 has said changing system supplier can be a daunting challenge, and industry statistics showing that fewer than 6% of fabricators change each year suggests the risks of delays and disruption stop many businesses from even considering it.

But Lawson Price, technical manager at Profile 22, said changing needn’t be difficult – and he has the figures to prove it.

“When we launched Optima last year, we successfully undertook a complete changeover of nearly 100 Profile 22 fabricators to Optima in just nine months,” he said. “We’ve also brought on-board a significant number of new fabricators so far this year too.”

Lawson said the key to Profile 22’s ability to undertake a seamless changeover is thanks to a meticulously planned changeover system that minimises disruption and means a fabricator can finish one system on the Friday and start again on Monday morning with Optima.

Before the Profile 22 changeover team goes to the fabricator’s site to complete the changeover, all tooling is delivered to its Telford factory, before being trial fitted and checked by a dedicated field technician. Similarly, all set up materials are ordered and factory tested 10 days prior to setup.

Preparations at the fabricator’s premises include training for staff, putting everything in place and checking it before undertaking the changeover and running test profiles. Only after this is successful are ‘live’ orders put through the systems.

The Profile 22 team will also place orders with the customer’s production team to make sure everything works in a real world environment.

“Our procedures are tried and tested and 100 changeovers in nine months is evidence of how well they work,” Lawson said.