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A RARE RELATIONSHIP THAT GOES MILES BEYOND THE EXTRA MILE It is an absolute rarity within the engineering industry to delve into a supplier/customer relationship and find what Gloster Engineering and Total CNC offer each other. As far as both are concerned, they complement each other and are extensions of the other’s businesses. But as Engineering News talked to more people involved in the two businesses we found something far scarcer – we found an engineering unicorn. And it’s even rarer to discover that the real story behind the partnership is not what they do – granted though that one is a supplier of superb engineering products and services and the other a long-established and innovative precision engineering firm – but instead, ‘how’ they do it which is nothing short of innovative and enviable. “Our relationship with our suppliers – and Total CNC is the perfect case in point of how this can work best – is about sticking to our knitting or core competency. We’re turners and machinists but because of all the things that are involved in what we do in the business we stick to what we are good at and we get people around us who are great at what they do,” says Gloster co-director Hans Kruiswijk. The relationship has been forged over the years, and today Total CNC are an “extension” of the Gloster business. The two companies have a solid relationship based on trust, openness, communication and absolute honesty. “They understand what is required by Glosters so we are very open with regard to what we need and how we work – it’s our job to get the best result for Glosters, and to do that we have to involve them and communicate our objectives,” says Hans. He adds that Total CNC is very much a stand out and they do things slightly different to others in the engineering supply marketplace. “You don’t just see them when something goes wrong and that’s very important to us. From our perspective machining and tooling are the two major things that we need to deal with, and we rely on people out there like Total CNC and their rep Rob Bennett that calls on us to keep us informed of important developments. “ But Rob is far more than a sales rep. He is a walking CNC machine encyclopaedia. He’s been involved with CNC machines in some form for decades, and knows how to get the very best out of every machine that he and Total CNC supplies. PROFILE OF SUCCESS “I can talk CAD/CAM, I can talk tools… through my career experience I do have a greater understanding of the role I have to play within the relationships with my customer base, in this case being Gloster,” says Rob, officially the CNC business development manager for Total CNC. “It’s kind of like a tool box. You’ve got the box and you open it every now and then and pull out the tools that my customer needs which can directly improve upon their business. This helps to get more out of the machines with the off-shoot being greater engineering and manufacturing efficiencies.” Rob’s been calling on Glosters for the past nine years and in that time has installed six new machines, and has been involved with even more installations and setting up of second-hand machines – some not being brands that Total CNC supplies. It’s a depth of service that is very unique. “We have helped Gloster in the purchase of 38 December 2017


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