Ross Barraclough, Regional Operations Director (North) for Sulzer, looks at how the partnerships formed by a maintenance service provider can benefit the wider customer base.

As a manufacturer, it is essential to offer your customers an aftersales service that will provide maintenance and repair services, to ensure continued, reliable operation of your equipment. However, with more complex or high-volume products, supporting an aftersales service can require considerable investment in facilities and personnel.

Take, for example, high voltage motors and generators. This equipment is of high value, either financially or as an essential part of a process, so the speed in which repairs can be delivered becomes crucial. By carefully selecting a maintenance and repair partner that can deliver the necessary service within the best possible timeframe, it is possible to support every customer to a point that they receive immediate attention.

Application expertise

In addition to the technical skills throughout the Sulzer workforce, there is considerable expertise in specific applications, such as offshore facilities, marine vessels, mining, power generation and rail. Each of these environments has its own set of demands and in many cases, requires engineers to receive additional training.

Customers that operate equipment in specialist applications can benefit from the instant availability of this diverse range of skills and qualifications. As with any maintenance project, speed is of the essence and the primary aim is to deliver a robust and reliable solution with the minimum of downtime.

Some industrial sectors, such as rail, employ a rolling maintenance schedule, where components are removed and refurbished on a set timetable, irrespective of their current condition. Where safety is of paramount importance, projects can be devised and executed to the most demanding schedules, ensuring that components are returned, with all the associated documentation, on time and on budget.

Selecting the right partner

The process of finding the most appropriate partner must be completed with the greatest care. Once a piece of equipment has been sold, contact with the customer will most likely be solely through the aftersales representatives. The reputation of a brand will often hang on the quality of service received from the aftersales team.

Clearly, any potential partner must be suitably qualified in the respective engineering fields, but also capable of delivering a high-quality service across a specified geographic region. The quality and speed of service depends upon the expertise and knowledge of the personnel as well as the facilities set up to support them.

For a completely rounded offering, the provision of a preventative maintenance service will help to identify potential issues early and allow a simpler solution to be implemented. This offers customers the opportunity to minimize maintenance costs and reduce downtime. In industries where lost production is calculated by the minute, preventative maintenance is essential.

Access to specialist facilities

The aim to deliver the best possible solution has led specialist maintenance and repair providers, such as Sulzer, to invest in a wide range of facilities to ensure they have the ability to help manufacturers deliver a quick solution. This leaves the OEMs to use their skills and equipment to create new products, while a group of specialists takes care of any after sales issues and developing replacement parts for legacy equipment.

For example, in-house design and manufacturing capabilities for new motor and generator coils can greatly reduce the time required to repair large electrical equipment. In addition, the designers can often improve the performance or efficiency of older components by integrating new materials and manufacturing techniques.

Of course, with all rotating equipment, it is essential that the component is properly balanced before being returned to service. Every provider of maintenance services should be able to deliver dynamic balancing at low speed, which for the majority of projects, will suffice.

However, some equipment, such as turbine rotors and large generator rotors, should be balanced at full operating speed and slightly beyond. This requires a specialist at-speed testing facility and these are mainly owned by the OEMs in the power generation sector. Nevertheless, there are a few independent sites, two of which are owned and operated by Sulzer. These additional facilities can make a huge difference in the speed of completion and the overall quality of a large-scale repair project.