A different take on time management
Outsourcing gives Alimak more room for core tasks
If you are not afraid of heights, then Alimak is the right place for you. The company designs, produces and maintains lifts that bring crane drivers to their cabin. But also systems that allow window cleaners to operate safely at great heights. As a specialist in vertical transport solutions for construction and industry the group has gained a strong market position. In order to maintain an undivided focus on their core activities, they regularly turn to itsme Industrial Automation for technical support.
With 1800 systems – mainly facade maintenance systems – spread across the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, no day is the same for the service technicians of the Alimak Group Benelux. Henk van der Weele, supervisor Service Operations employed at the Moerdijk office, the Netherlands, sees to it that they will be on site within two hours.
And if it becomes really urgent, then they will be there even within the hour. Reacting quickly is crucial in a market in which there are often no alternatives to continuing the work in the event of breakdowns. “Our strength lies in a good backing system and a high service level. For instance, we have maintenance contracts with large government organisations. In them we guarantee that a machine will be operational again within 24 hours. That requires a lot from your organisation, but that is precisely our strength.” For example, they have a division in Germany that can supply custom-made parts in no time, a service with which Alimak distinguishes itself within the segment.
Outsourcing
Part of the installations maintained by Alimak were built by companies that meanwhile no longer exist. This sometimes leads to extra challenges when a problem has to be solved in controls that have not been designed by them. And sometimes, it involves parts that were designed specifically for that particular system. Offering a new machine is an option. But Alimak prefers to think along with their customers. So they first consider the options of the existing installation. “We possess the knowledge to find that out for ourselves. And also the curiosity, because we still remain real techies, of course”, Henk laughs. But because of the large number of orders, they simply lack the time to really get into this. “That is why we prefer to outsource it to parties such as itsme. This leaves us more time for our core tasks. Consider it a form of time management”, he says.
"Outsourcing certain things leaves us more time for our core tasks”
As a supply partner of electrotechnical materials itsme had already been in the picture for years, but Henk still remembers the first time they gave technical support. It was a special installation for facade maintenance at a large bank in Utrecht. “It contained a very old German PLC, an ABB 07KR264. I myself had put it on the roof there 38 years before. In order to act quickly, we approached itsme. Together we arrived at the Siemens S7.” It proved to be the gateway to a new form of collaboration.
Unexpected solution
Recently, Pieter van Ginneken, application engineer at itsme, went with an Alimak technician to a government agency in The Hague. There were a number of facade installations of which the PLCs no longer stored all the data. There was, however, one barrier, says Pieter. “Because it was an older installation that had not been built by Alimak, we didn’t have a password to retrieve the program from the PLC.” After a thorough search Pieter came across a sticker in the cabinet, of the company that had worked on the installation. “I know someone who works there, so I called him. The initial programmer no longer worked for them, but my acquaintance searched for long and hard, until he found a telephone number.” That one call to find out that password saved quite a number of hours that would otherwise have been needed to rewrite the program.
“In order to act quickly, we engaged itsme”
Meanwhile, Pieter went looking for a suitable replacement that would comply with both the performance level and the construction size, with regard to the limited space in the existing cabinets. They decided on a Schneider Electric PLC, the TM221, after which he could convert the program. “Together with an Alimak technician I went up to the roof to install the new PLC. It is nice to see it work in the surroundings where it belongs.”
Colleagues wanted
The future looks bright for Alimak. There is an enormous amount of work, both mechanical and electrical. Maintenance will, of course, keep coming back, but they are also well represented in new buildings. “We are a small, well-oiled team and that makes our work incredibly diverse. For the future, we would like to scale up, but for that we are still looking for people with a mechatronics background, preferably versed in electrotechnics. If that basic schooling is present, we shall teach you the rest. In that way we also invest in training. In December we plan to follow a two-day training TIA Portal SIMATIC S7 basic with itsme. I’m looking forward to it”, Henk ends enthusiastically.
| Alimak Group Benelux has several offices in, among others, Moerdijk, Tilburg (both in the Netherlands) and Wommelgem, Belgium. The Tilburg office specialises in elevator work platforms. In Moerdijk they specialise in facade maintenance installations. The organisation aims at rental, sales and service of vertical transport and has major customers, among others in the construction sector. They are part of the Swedish Alimak Group, with a presence in more than 100 countries market leader in the field of vertical transport. A special internal division is involved in transport systems in windmills. |