Making It Easy to Help You Be Successful
Season #: 1 Episode #: 4
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- Making It Easy For You With New Innovations
Transcription
Making It Easy to Help You Be Successful
Carmen Ek: This is Community News On The Air, brought to you by Regal Rexnord® Motion Control Systems. I'm your host, Carmen Ek, and in this podcast series we'll be sharing tools, tips and new innovations to address some of the tough challenges our customers face. Overall, my goal is to help our customers' employees be successful.
In today's podcast, we're discussing new technologies and innovations Regal Rexnord Motion Control Systems offers to help our customers save time and money. We are simplifying processes, enhancing tools, and developing solutions to make doing business with Regal Rexnord easier for our customers and distributors.
So to deep-dive into this, I've asked Chad Hartley, our VP and General Manager for bearings and components, to join me today so he can give us the inside track on what's new with Regal Rexnord Motion Control Systems.
Oh, and by the way, Chad is very focused on driving home ways to solve tough customer challenges and deliver a fresh, simplified approach. So I think you're going to like this.
Hi, Chad. Welcome to Community News On The Air.
Chad Hartley: Hello, Carmen. Thank you for having me. And it's great to be here.
Carmen Ek: So, Chad, when you think about what our customers need to meet their business objectives today besides, of course, having quality products and solutions, what comes to mind?
Chad Hartley: Well, our customers absolutely need a reliable product in their applications, which we have provided for the course of our history. Additionally, our customers need expertise and support, and over the past few years we've increased our sales force by 46% and our customer service team by 60%.
But what we're seeing, in addition to these traditional needs, is we continue to see a need to make it easy for the customer as well as provide insight. And making it easy for our customers, what we mean is easy to understand and find information on our products, easy to transact with us, and easy to use and interact with our products. And we are able to deliver this with our enhanced digital tools that we continue to deploy.
Carmen Ek: Yeah, exactly. I mean, everyone is very short on time, so whatever we can do to simplify, I think will really be valued by our customers.
In today's world, it's no secret that people start researching online to get information, solve their problem or find a product before even talking this someone. To meet this trend, at Regal Rexnord Motion Control Systems, we recently made many new enhancements to our website to better serve our customers.
So with this in mind, Chad, which of our new online tools do you think is going to make life easier for them?
Chad Hartley: Our new website is focused on rich content and ease of use. One of the major things that I think we have to offer is, with over 15,000 360-degree spin, high resolution images which cover virtually all of our most popular catalog products, and over 47,000 3D CAD files which can be downloaded, our digital experience continues to be an industry leader.
All of this is powered by a database tied directly to our engineering systems that ensures that our rich content stays up to date and allows for syndication to our distribution channel.
We also have enhanced our product comparison features and have provided more examples of our solution stories, and increased our library of how-to videos and supporting information. And I believe all of these things were going to be a very big help to our customers.
Carmen Ek: I couldn't agree with you more. So many new tools and features, I think it's going to be a big help.
So how about new tools in terms of getting quick answers? What's new there?
Chad Hartley: As part of our new website enhancements, we've recently deployed a new chat experience. This is staffed by our helpful and responsive customer service team to allow for flexibility in whatever way our customers choose to correspond with our teams.
We have also implemented our availability program for our Sealmaster®, McGill®, and Browning® bearing product lines. This is available through our e-commerce platform, which gives our customers insight to product availability and guides our customers to the most readily available products to help them address their urgent needs. This is truly a timesaver for our customers.
Carmen Ek: I really like all those tools. It's really exciting.
What about when it comes down to buying? What are some of the new enhancements that we've incorporated to make transacting with us easier for our customers?
Chad Hartley: Well, as we mentioned previously, the availability program is a big part of making it easy for our customers in the decision process of buying. Additionally, once the purchase is made, our customers need to know when they will receive the product. One of the primary areas we have been focused on is proactive shipment notifications, which we're in the process of implementing at this time. This is providing accurate, responsive and up to date shipment information to our customers so they know when to expect their products. We continue to evolve or e-commerce tools and expect to roll out more enhancements in the latter part of 2020.
Carmen Ek: That's good news. And for those of you listening, we will keep you updated on those enhancements as we roll them out.
I want to switch gears a little bit now, Chad. As you know, many of our customers are tasked with improving productivity goals, lowering total cost of ownership for their critical equipment, or reducing nuisance maintenance. They're looking for ways that technology can help them better meet their objectives. Can you tell me about some of the innovations that we're deploying that can help them with this?
Chad Hartley: Yes, absolutely, Carmen. Our customers are constantly being asked to improve efficiency in all areas. Plus, many are facing shortages of people or are tasked with training new hires. We have varying degrees of new technology and services available that our customers can leverage to help them with these challenges.
One that comes to mind is the recent launch of our PT Mobile app. This app allows our customers to achieve asset management in the palm of their hands. Beginning with bearings, maintenance teams can register their bearing, extend their warranty, and get maintenance alerts, as well as have valuable links to installation videos and product information, all from their smartphone.
Carmen Ek: You know, I've checked this app out, and I really see this helping our customers stay ahead of the game and proactively manage their products. It's just fantastic.
Now, what about for critical equipment that would really cost a plant hundreds of thousands of dollars if the machine fails?
Chad Hartley: Our Perceptiv Technologies™ Condition Monitoring allows customers to conduct precision maintenance using the most current technologies for sensing torque, vibration and efficiency.
Our team has a vast amount of applications of product knowledge across multiple industries, so they not only talk the talk but walk the walk. By deploying IoT, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and digital twins, we're able to deploy custom solutions to the areas that can provide the most value to our customers.
Ultimately, we have the ability to help our customers not only see the future, but change it.
Carmen Ek: These are really exciting high tech tools and resources that our customers can really take advantage of.
As you know, we have so many products that can address tough challenges. There is this one particular issue our customers face that really tends to eat up the maintenance SAS time, and that's around bearing installation, removal and maintenance. And since you're the bearing leader, I thought I'd be really good if you could cover a few of the newer, innovative solutions that we have around bearings that can help address some of these issues.
Chad Hartley: Thanks, Carmen. I'm glad you brought this up, because we've launched several new bearing products to simplify bearing maintenance and save our customers time and money.
First, for quicker bearing removal, we designed the Sealmaster large bore mounted ball bearings with our patented time-saving axial groove to aid in the removal of our bearings. We also have our Sealmaster spherical roller bearings which are now available with our Klamploc™ tapered adapter lock. Klamploc is designed to make industrial maintenance easier by simplifying installation with significantly fewer steps to the process.
We also recently launched the Sealmaster Next Generation Skwezloc® Concentric Locking Collar. This has been redesigned to accommodate commercial turned-and-polished shaft tolerances with improved lock reliability, which can provide a cost savings to our customers.
So we're not only making it easier on our customers to obtain valuable information on our products, but also making it easier to interact with our products.
Carmen Ek: The Sealmaster brand is continuing to innovate. It's such a problem solver. The other area I know where our customers are looking for new solutions is in material handling. And when I think of that, I think of our System Plast® ModSort® module. Can you touch a little bit on that new product?
Chad Hartley: Absolutely.
With the increase in online shopping package handling at the last mile is really growing. So to address labor-intense manual package handling for right angle transfers, we invented the System Plast ModSort Transfer Station for automated, accurate on-the-fly sortation.
This is helping facilities globally improve safety, simplify their systems and meet their production goals. Our Regal Rexnord team is very excited about the opportunities we're seeing to help our customers with this innovative solution in a rapidly involving industry.
Carmen Ek: I've seen the ModSort module in action. It's really cool.
So if you want to learn more about that or any of the other products that Chad talked about, you can go to regalrexnord.com. There's a ton of information out there. You can also click on Ask the Expert.
So before we go, Chad, let's touch on education and training. As you mentioned earlier, there is a shortage of experts, and there are many new faces entering the industry all the time. A lot of turnover. What resources are available to support these changes and provide education and training to the next generation?
Chad Hartley: We have a comprehensive online training center called Regal Rexnord Training Academy. This has dozens of modules to help our distributors and customers learn about common application problems and solutions as well as learn about basic power transmission fundamentals. These modules are free and are flexible so users can log in and learn at their own pace.
We also continue to offer in-person training at operations and field schools for our distributors. These training courses are centered around products, solutions and sales techniques.
In 2020, Regal Rexnord IPS will continue to offer regional and factory-based courses led by our subject matter experts.
Carmen Ek: Chad, that was a really good overview. And for those of you listening, you can register for online Regal Rexnord Training Academy at regalrexnord.com.
It's been great covering with you, Chad, all the things that we're doing to make it easier to do business with Regal Rexnord.
We're almost at a time. So what are the parting thoughts that you can leave us with?
Chad Hartley: Thanks, Carmen. We are continuing to evolve our business model with the ever changing needs of our customers. We will continue to provide the reliable products and solutions you're accustomed to, while making it easier to do business with Regal Rexnord.
As digital technology becomes more entwined with our products and applications, you will see us compliment our product offerings with more connected products and IoT solutions that can provide enhanced value for our customers, utilizing our extensive industry knowledge combined with the latest technology to provide insights to our customer base.
Carmen Ek: Chad, thank you so much for being here today and taking the time to go through all these really cool innovations.
Chad Hartley: Carmen, thanks a lot for having me. It's been a lot of fun.