Protecting your margins

The growth in sales, by volume, of circuit protection and control products in recent years has been severely offset by ever increasing price competition. This has been accentuated by an increase in imported products, meaning that there are more manufacturers competing for a level market, by value.

Such levels of competition have serious consequences. It results in an erosion of profit margins for the installer, distributor and the manufacturer.

As the UK market becomes more competitive in terms of price and the number of manufacturers, the wholesaler/manufacturer relationship becomes more important to the contractor.

The contractor must develop relationships with manufacturers, wholesalers and end-users to their mutual benefit. They must work together to develop the right products to meet the developing needs of the customer.

Within each sector of the market there is a continuing transition from fused equipment to circuit-breaker products. The added value of the latter has helped sustain the market value.

There will always be a market for fusegear and fused equipment. Fuses have a vital role to play in a wide range of applications, most notably where high fault breaking capacity is crucial. This will continue to be a significant, but stable, market led by manufacturers of British Standard products.

Future growth, however, rests with circuit-breaker products. They provide excellent overload performance which, together with additional features and benefits, give a value-added solution to many modern installation problems. The convenience of visible indication of operation and the ability to be reset are the most apparent advantages of circuit-breaker products. These are supplemented by the ability to incorporate facilities such as earth leakage protection, undervoltage and overvoltage protection, together with monitoring and control possibilities.

The range of current ratings is catered for by miniature and moulded case circuit-breakers (mcbs and mccbs) and air circuit-breakers (acbs), each providing similar features and capabilities over and above basic circuit protection.

There has been a marked increase in the use of earth leakage protection devices such as residual current circuit-breakers (rccbs), residual current circuit breakers with overload protection (rcbos) or earth leakage modules associated with mccbs or acbs. This has had two effects – it provides the end user with additional protection, as recommended in BS 7671: Requirements for Electrical Installations and it has increased the value of any given installation for the contractor, wholesaler and manufacturer.

The ability to service this market has been enhanced by developments such as the rcbo 'pod' and MEM's Memshield Intelligent Monitoring and Protection System module, MIMPS.

These modular products can be fitted to circuit-breaker installations in-situ. This provides added flexibility and reduced installation time for the contractor and it raises the level of flexibility for distributors' stockholding by enabling products that were previously regarded as 'specials' to be offered as standard.

Further developments can be achieved by collaboration between the distributor and the manufacturer to ascertain the contractors' needs and introduce products, designed to meet them.

These principles are not restricted to devices alone. They also apply to consumer units, distribution boards and panelboards, where scheduling enables the layout of the enclosure to be determined at the final installation stage, maximising the cost effectiveness of the distributors' stock and providing the widest range of options to the contractor.

This approach will continue as further protection and control devices are introduced to the market, with higher levels of functionality to satisfy the demand for increased levels of control.

Meanwhile, there is an emerging trend for specifiers and contractors to look for ways in which they can reduce the number of suppliers for individual projects. If one company can supply a complete package of electrical distribution products it can work to the benefit of the manufacturer, distributor, contractor and end-user alike. More favourable pricing structures can frequently be negotiated. Rather than shop around for different products through different distributors, the contractor should be able to source the whole package through one distributor.