There has been a markedly increased rate of attrition of the highly technical skills required in the electric motor repair and remanufacture industry in the past few years, with many experienced artisans having left the industry or retiring.
Gavin Garland, managing director of Marthinusen & Coutts says that despite numerous training programmes, equity targets and skills development programmes, there has still been a net loss of skills to the industry. The company, a specialist repairer of electrical rotating equipment, has overcome the deficiency of skills by establishing partnerships with electric motor original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
"This type of relationship with an OEM provides us with access to its proprietary information such as design data, specifications, detailed drawings and work procedures. By disseminating this information to the shop floor level, we are able to ensure that all repairs are controlled according to the OEM standards. This ensures a remanufacture to OEM specifications," Garland says.
Garland says that as these relationships grow, Marthinusen & Coutts will become more like an OEM in culture, instituting a continual learning process with the access to technology and design data provided by the partnerships. "We foresee the relationship offering particular benefits to customers requiring turnkey projects such as motor design specification, installation, commissioning and preventive and predictive maintenance contracts," commented Garland.
In December 2004, Marthinusen & Coutts was selected as the exclusive technology partner for Zest Electric Motors and Drives for its Brazilian branded WEG motors. Zest is a significant player in the southern African market, and the partnership will benefit both companies significantly. Garland says it will give Zest ready access to a repair and services infrastructure and invested technology thereby enhancing its capability in the market.
During the course of last year, Marthinusen & Coutts also concluded a relationship with Morley Electric Motors in the United Kingdom. Morley was founded in 1897 and has an international presence. Locally, the majority of its motors can be found in continuous miners in the coal industry. Through this technology partnership, Marthinusen & Coutts has been successful in restoring a number of these flameproof motors back to original specification with all the quality standards being met. One customer has achieved optimum availability of the motors since the establishment of the partnership, having experienced numerous failures previously.
The company has also successfully signed a technology partnership agreement with Sicme Motori, an Italian manufacturer of DC motors. These range in size from 370 W to 2 kW and are typically used in mine winder applications, steel mills, overhead cranes and general industrial applications. Sicme Motori's local agent Hoist Tec has built up a large base of installed motors in South Africa which require a local service presence.
Audit
Marthinusen & Coutts was audited by a delegation sent out by Sicme Motori and the OEM-driven approach adopted by the company as well as the quality systems in place appealed to the Italians. The partnership was concluded in late 2004, when Marthinusen & Coutts was appointed as the official service partner for sub-Saharan Africa.
Garland is quick to stress that the company is not an OEM and nor does it intend becoming one.
"We aim to retain the good elements we offer as a first tier repair company such as fast reaction time, speed of turnaround and our on-site service capability," he says. "At the same time, we feel that these OEM partnerships bring structure to our repair processes and we intend to move from a reverse engineered repair culture to an OEM approach."
The benefits to the business are both short and long term. In the short term, customers will send work to Marthinusen & Coutts because of its access to the OEM technology. In the longer term, regardless of the type of motor, customers will recognise that the overall OEM approach has the benefit of ensuring a better repair. The culture of learning and using knowledge from the OEMs within the repair environment will permeate throughout the operation.
For more information contact Gavin Garland, Marthinusen & Coutts, +27 (0) 11 616 2320, www.mandc.co.za
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