Life in an International Service Center: Bundling Workshop Repairs
ZF’s service technicians are always at your side. This doesn’t mean they are always on the road, the water or in the sky. There’s a ZF team working indoors to guarantee gearbox availability all over the world. ZF Wind Power’s service workshops are spread over India, China, Germany and the USA.
ZF’s service approach bundles volumes of certain services to offer a significant reduction in gearbox lead-time. This way there can even be a 5-day availability achieved for high runner gearbox types.
We contacted Umakanth Papatla, Head of ZF Wind Power’s Wind Service Center in Coimbatore (India) and Sivakumar Jayapal, EMEA & Asia Pacific service, to explain us the challenges in ZF’s international workshop approach.
Capacity: When Serial Production and Gearbox Repair Do Take Place at the Same Moment at the Same Location
The Indian Wind Power plant is established as the main service hub for 2MW gearboxes. Gearbox repairs in Coimbatore (India) do take place in the same plant as the gearboxes serial production. Serial production has priority on repairs, which means machines are not always available to test and repair incoming gearboxes. Waiting until machines are available would create repair timelines of up to 140 days…
“This is not what we want to offer our customers,“ says Umakanth. “By improving our service repair strategy, we were able to reduce the reparation time drastic with almost 50%. Now, more than 1 GW of capacity is reserved to repair defect 2 MW gearboxes for the global service market. New service replacement units (high runner types) are being produced in large volumes almost as serial production. Constant production flows ensure short lead times of 4-8 weeks. Shop repairs of defect gearboxes are bundled & optimized and thus reducing the repair lead time significantly.”
By bundling repairs of the same type, the team was able to reduce repair lead times to maximum 50 days. Furthermore, the independent service organization at Coimbatore works on flexible timings in a 6 days / 3 shift service operation having access to extensive inhouse gear manufacturing / regrinding capacity and multiple test benches up to 4,5 MW each.
Minimize Lead-Time: When Wind Sites All Over the World Should Be Served as Quick as Possible
Like mentioned above, ZF Wind Power’s service organization exists out of an internal network, with service centers or sales & distribution centers in all key regions in the world.
Every center has an impressive stock of gearboxes and is able to supply (new and refurbished) gearboxes to global customers directly or via regional service centers alternatively.
“To ensure best-in-class availability we are keeping an extensive pool of gearboxes locally and ready to ship in key regions as well as in our production hub in Coimbatore, India... Customers can choose if they would like to buy from ZFs regional pools (lead time of max. 5 working days) or directly from the pool in the service production location (lead time 6-8 weeks), to eliminate unnecessary logistical costs”, explains Sivakumar.
