Renowned South Australian family run machinery business, Ramsey Bros, has seen stock and demand continue to rise. Group Operations Manager Lincoln Ramsey provides insight into the current situation in South Australia.
Q: From your point of view, what efforts are being made by machinery dealers like yours to access spare parts for grain producers?
LR:
Inventory Levels: Have significantly increased since pre-COVID (2020), in some cases more than 40 percent. Most of this has been in response to supply chain issues that thankfully seem to have normalised in the past 12 months.
Centralised Stock:Manufacturers have also been more proactive in working with dealers by locating high value low volume parts such as engines and larger hard to freight components into centralised ‘Hub Stock’ locations. This becomes a local source of usually hard to get parts readily available to the dealer network.
Having the right stock: Increasing inventory levels is one thing but ensuring we have the right stock on hand is the key. Most successful dealers have proactive systems and internal programs in place to review seasonal parts usage and future requirements to ensure we pick-up on trends or emerging issues.
Being proactive: Although we cannot have everything on the shelf, our Parts Team are dedicated to sourcing parts for breakdowns, amongst the CNH network we have visibility across all CNH dealers. This has huge value during peak times like seeding and harvest, as we all work well together to ensure customer up time is the priority. Freight at times can be a frustration for us all, but the key here is communication and setting realistic expectations of both ETAs into the dealership and
costs associated.
Options: If there is one thing, we had to get good at during recent parts shortages, it’s looking for alternative options. Genuine parts have undoubtably got advantages such as quality control, premium warranty and guaranteed engineering compatibility with your machine, but this said we have always had access to, and have recently found, some great aftermarket alternatives that have supplemented our ability to supply.
Staff, Skills and Training: We are committed to the ongoing skill development and training of our team, and work to ensure we have the right people with the right skills to support farmers when they need. We have an agile workforce to help farmers when and where they need.
Q: Have you seen the demand for machinery parts grow in recent years and if so, why?
LR: Absolutely.
Machine Park: Machine sales up until the start of 2023 have been at historical highs, this simply means we are serving and supporting more machines in the field and although with new machinery comes better reliability, when it comes to machines such as harvesters, balers and seeding equipment they are high wearing, and they all need parts.
Crop Type: We have seen a significant shift in recent times across South Australia to Legumes such as Lentils. Taking harvesters as again as the example, the nature of reaping these low to the ground crops has also seen increased wear and damage.
Toilet Paper Effect: Although we are very much post-COVID and supply is back to normal (whatever that is) we have seen a shift in buying habits. As a dealer, since 2020 our stocking level increased significantly to try and protect our customers from global shortages. Pre-COVID customers were more inclined to buy on an as-need basis but now are more likely to buy two or three and keep some on the shelf at home. We encourage this! It allows us to place larger orders, maximise our margins and pass on advantages such as upfront discounts and freight free bonus to the customer.
Q: What tips do you have for grain producers who are needing to get spare machinery parts during harvest and seeding?
LR: Participate in pre-season service programs. These programs are designed to not only ensure your machines are properly inspected and repaired but to offer the maximum lead times for purchasing parts and therefore pass on the maximum discounts to the customer. All dealers offer alternative programs across a variety of machine types. Take the time to talk to your dealer about what’s involved and savings available.
Communicate, work together. This is something we can all be better at! When ordering parts make sure you talk to the dealership about urgency, the longer the lead time the cheaper it will be. Usually anything is possible as far as supply goes, but the associated costs can be high, take the time to understand and discuss your options, transparency is the key. This is when non genuine can also be an alternative.
Be prepared. The more information you can provide on your machine to the parts team at the point of order, the better. If you have purchased your machine from the dealership, you should expect a level of understanding and knowledge to be held on file but that is not always the case. Information like Make, Model, Serial number and even part numbers if visible are all very helpful to ensure quick turn around and getting the right part.
Q: At Ramsey Bros, how have you seen the rebound of machinery sales from COVID when waiting times for orders were long?
LR: All Dealer groups in Australia have seen a complete 180 when comparing to a few years ago. Essentially what was no supply and high demand has flipped to high supply and lower demand. Contributing factors such as the removal of the instant tax write off, all factories coming back online to full production, orders placed up to two or three years ago now being supplied, higher interest rates and the fact that many have already updated plant over the past few years have all contributed.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
LR: There is very much a good news story in South Australia for our customers and that is that most dealer groups regardless of colour are family owned and often still family run business. This means these businesses have a genuine vested interest in their people, the communities and ultimately the customers we serve. Delivering the right parts, service and sales outcomes for our clients is more than a job or a tick and flick, it runs generations deep and means something to the people providing the service. As goes with any business relationship, providing respectful, constructive feedback is valued, if we don’t know we can’t fix it.
Do we get it right every time, of course not, but I truly believe we all go to work with the genuine intent of not just maintaining but always looking at ways to keep both ours and our customers business viable today and for generations to come.