The United States power industry has installed
and operated more than 1,000 Warman slurry pumps since the late
1970’s to serve as absorber recycle pumps handling lime slurry in
Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) systems.
A reduction in maintenance personnel, part of
a cost cutting movement through out the United States power
industry, has resulted in improperly attended equipment or
maintenance work contracted to others. Understanding this trend,
Weir Minerals North America established a Total Care Field Service
organization with technical expertise and authorized service
centers to fill the void left by FGD workforce reductions. The
Field Service group offering consists of Reman equipment, pump
rebuilds and service labor. Weir Minerals purchases used
pumps, rebuilds them, and sells them back to the marketplace with a
full factory warranty.
In addition to providing remanufactured
products, Weir Minerals has the capability to rebuild customers’
equipment either on site or in one of our factory authorized
service centers. After the equipment is disassembled and evaluated,
the cost to rebuild is provided to the customer before the work is
performed. Since the work is completed by factory trained personnel
and utilizes only genuine Weir Minerals parts, the work carries a
full factory warranty. The rebuild program has been well accepted
in the FGD market.
With the addition of direct factory service
personnel, Weir Minerals has been able to add another dimension to
our Total Care service offering. Service technicians have the
capability and equipment to visit individual plant sites, monitor
equipment and provide performance data and predictive maintenance
reports. Again, FGD customers are excited about this service and
are soliciting our assistance at a growing rate.
The Weir Minerals Total Care Service operation
in North America started with just a handful of remanufactured pump
sales and now employs five field service representatives, three
sales specialists and four service administrators. Service work is
channeled through eighteen independently owned service centers and
one direct Weir Minerals facility, strategically located around the
United States.
As an example, when a particular customer
contacted Weir Minerals with a simple request for spares to convert
their Warman pumps from rubber lined to metal lined, we responded
not only with a spares proposal, but also with a complete Customer
Alliance Package. The package included spares pricing and
availability, continuous pump monitoring, and a pump rebuild
program. To prove our worth to this customer, we rebuilt 5 pumps
with genuine Weir Minerals parts and to Weir Minerals specs and
rigourously tested them. The customer took our
performance data and translated it to increased scrubbing capacity
and determined that the service we provided more than paid for
itself. As a result a three year Total Care contract was signed and
we continue to monitor and provide predictive maintenance and
repairs to this valuable customer.
Another example is a customer who we worked
with for several years to introduce the Total Care concept. After
three years, we were finally given an opportunity to rebuild one of
their Warman DG-9-5 pumps in one of our Total Care centers.
Impressed with our quick turn around and improved pump performance,
they asked us to rebuild the other four pumps on that unit. Pleased
with our service, the next year they asked us to rebuild five more.
In 2006 this same customer gave us an order to rebuild the final 10
absorber recycle pumps in that plant.
Utilizing our service, we provide full factory
warranty and guarantee performance to Weir Minerals specs, a real
benefit to the customer. The Total Care program provides a
desperately needed service to our valued power customers, building
close customer relationships and reducing total ownership
costs.
