The Royal Mint, based in Llantrisant, South Wales, has rewarded its top suppliers through a competitive and respected award scheme since 2010, attracting entries from upwards of 50 suppliers each year. The hotly-contested awards cover technical innovation, contribution to environmental and sustainable supply and continuous improvement among others, with one of the eight category winners taking home the overall Supplier of the Year award.
Brammer’s category win came in the Working in Partnerships (Goods & Services) section, with Chief Executive Officer Ian Fraser among the team attending the awards ceremony to receive the prize. Having worked with The Royal Mint since 2011 and with four staff members employed on site, Brammer currently supplies around 15,000 lines per year including industrial consumables and personal protective equipment (PPE). Over the past year, Brammer has surpassed its ‘on-time-in-full’ target for these products.
As well as working closely with The Royal Mint’s procurement team and implementing more than £156,000 worth of cost saving initiatives, Brammer has also been invited to join the Operational Strategy deployment team to deliver a number of value-adding projects including stores optimisation. A recent project – the rationalisation of safety gloves to ensure correct product selection for all applications – won a British Safety Industry Federation (BSIF) Safety Excellence Award in conjunction with partner glove manufacturer Ansell. Additionally, Brammer’s industrial vending service Invend™ is currently being rolled out to provide key industrial consumables at line side and allow The Royal Mint to monitor and reduce consumption – with a potential saving of between 25 to 40 per cent.
Russell Gardiner of Brammer, who works full-time at The Royal Mint, manages the Insite™ which requires close collaboration and partnership between the two teams: “Effectively a dedicated Brammer branch housed within a customer site, Insite™ has helped achieve cost savings by The Royal Mint through vendor consolidation and product rationalisation,” explained Russell. “As we work onsite with customer staff we become an integrated part of the team and are able to identify and contribute to value-adding projects as well as being able to call in our own technical specialists or partner manufacturers at the time of need. We also cover out of hours call-outs, saving potential disruptive downtime for The Royal Mint. It’s very gratifying to have been recognised for both our successful partnership approach and as overall Supplier of the Year and we look forward to supporting The Royal Mint with future projects.”
Adam Lawrence, CEO at The Royal Mint commented: “Our vision is to be recognised as the world’s best mint, and we will only achieve that when we have the world’s best supply chain. Exceeding targets, enabling cost savings and contributing to strategic projects are qualities we are keen to reward through our Supplier Awards. Brammer has been a valued partner of The Royal Mint’s for five years and the team constantly strives to identify areas for development and improvement. The Insite™ staff and wider Brammer team are worthy winners of the Working in Partnership and Supplier of the Year awards.”