Peter MacLeod caught up with James Ryan, founder of Sentry Protection Products, to learn more about rack protection and what visitors to the Sentry booths at this Spring’s trade shows can expect.
In recent years, we’ve taken great interest in the products brought to market by Sentry, who are expert at identifying areas of danger and coming up with seemingly simple solutions to reduce or eliminate warehouse accidents. But after many conversations with James Ryan, the founder of Sentry Protection Products, only now do I fully comprehend the design and manufacture challenges
that lie behind ‘simple’ solutions such as its Column Sentry rack protectors, and the lead time it takes to conceive, test, trial and manufacture, and then bring to market such a solution. Not to mention the various international standards to which it has to conform.
Given enough time, anyone could come up with a complicated solution to solve a problem. But real genius lies in the ability to develop a solution that is both brilliantly effective and brilliantly simple, the “why didn’t I think of that” type of product.
A year ago, Ryan showed me a prototype of the Collision Sentry Multi-Zone product, a development of an existing collision warning device that operates around internal and external warehouse doors. This is now fully introduced to the market, and Sentry will be promoting this at the forthcoming LogiMAT trade show from its booth in Hall 1. “It’s starting to solve some problems in high-traffic areas that we just could not in the past,” says Ryan. “We never expected it to be the high volume product that we see with our corner products, but it’s really nice to create a warning system for those other difficult areas where people can have accidents.”
Modularity Rules
Again, this time last year, Ryan was trialling an enhancement to its Column Sentry range, the adjustable Column Sentry FIT, which is designed to protect columns of virtually any dimension
thanks to its modular manufacture. “We’ve just introduced a redesigned medium product that allows us to create a protection system from just three pieces. They are now fully compatible with each other, so we have virtually hundreds of different sizes available using just those three pieces.”
This is an important development, as in order to try to eliminate the problem of having columns in the middle of a warehouse, they are now being built with fewer but thicker columns spanning greater distances. Further benefits include greater ease of shipping, and a reduced volume of stockholding required to cover a larger variety of column sizes.
Seeking European Stockists
Given the additional attractiveness of these enhancements, Sentry will be looking to secure further stockists and installers at LogiMAT. “Because of the modularity of these products, we are
hoping to encourage our stockists to take more stock to keep products close to the markets while not having to commit huge amounts of inventory. In markets such as southern and eastern Europe where we are hoping to grow, it saves us a week of trying to get something in someone’s hands. We have a combination of products that are easy to understand and easy to install, and we are looking to work with partners who can promote our products alongside their existing range. For the most part they are easy to install and put in, so adding them to whatever else you’re selling is very simple to do.”
With ‘simple’, effective solutions such as those that Sentry has invented and developed, I put it to Ryan that there’s always a danger that an unscrupulous company could duplicate and bring copy product to the market. “We patent our products, and we defend those patents vigorously,” he replies with a wry smile. “However, we love to see the development of more and more products, because it’s good for the consumer and it forces us to be better.
“Someone in South America sent us a product that looks very much like our Collision Sentry Corner Pro. We took the battery door off the copy and put it onto ours and – this is how close the copy
was – it fitted! It looked very much like ours, but when we tested it, sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t. When someone brings out a product that looks like yours but they’ve cut corners, that’s
where it gets dangerous. If it works only sometimes, then they stop believing in that overall and that just kills that whole idea for us and for any other products that come behind us.”
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