Following a recent investment and transfer of knowledge and skills, ABB South Africa’s motor and generator factory in Alrode, near Johannesburg, is now fully compliant with the Department of Trade and Industry’s ‘greater than 70% local sourcing’ regulations. This development demonstrates the company’s full commitment to skills development and localisation.
ABB’s commitment also includes the modernisation of local manufacturing facilities, comparable to the best in the world. This has been demonstrated in the Alrode factory’s upgrade. Combining the best available materials with superior technology, the electric motors and generators produced in the Alrode factory will operate reliably in every industry and application, despite challenging process or application environments, and with the lowest lifecycle cost.
Customer benefits
Local manufacture offers many benefits to customers, from ABB’s improved broad-based black economic employment (B-BBEE) rating to reduced costs, improved efficiencies and shortened turnaround times which result in better after sales service and access to spare parts.
The upgrade means that the Alrode factory can now manufacture, and test in-house, large induction and synchronous motors, and generators capable of producing between 550 kW and 20 MW of electricity, for power utilities, heavy industries and mines within South Africa, and further field. The factory can also support specific customer requirements by designing and manufacturing to order, unique motors and generators tailored to local conditions.
Product lifecycle management and repair services
ABB’s product lifecycle management model is designed to provide proactive service offerings for increased availability and performance. The company offers a dedicated field service programme that supports installation, supervision, commissioning and a full range of field-bound maintenance services designed to increase the reliability of the motors and generators already in use.
The new Alrode factory is also able to offer a full range of genuine OEM spare parts, including commissioning parts, operational parts, preventative maintenance kits and capital parts. Being fully compliant with the DTI’s requirements bodes well for the company since as it can now offer its products and services to a greater number of customers. Building an agile and customer-focused organisation is part of ABB’s focus on customer centricity as it will increase competitiveness and create new opportunities for export into neighbouring countries.
The IIoT edge is evolving January 2020, Technews Publishing (SA Instrumentation & Control)
, News
In its IIoT context, the edge is traditionally understood to be a kind of half-way point between the plant and the cloud. Physically hard to define, the edge acts as a repository for data collected from ...
Read more...SKF acquires industrial AI company January 2020
, News
SKF has signed an agreement to acquire Presenso, a company that develops and deploys artificial intelligence (AI)-based predictive maintenance software. Presenso’s capability enables production plants ...
Read more...Bosch Ulwazi hosts 2019 Engineer in Training function January 2020
, News
Bosch Ulwazi’s 2019 Engineer-in-Training (EIT) Conference was recently held in Mt Edgecombe. At this annual event, graduates are given an interactive platform to showcase the knowledge and skills they ...
Read more...Smart cities embrace 4IR January 2020, Schneider Electric South Africa
, News
Smart cities rely on smart grid technology that includes traditional and renewable energy sources in its mix of power supply. Driven by the advanced technology of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), ...
Read more...North American EtherCAT Plug Fest offers opportunities January 2020
, News
The 2019 North American EtherCAT Plug Fest recently took place in Denver, USA. Numerous well-known manufacturers of EtherCAT devices came together over two days to test the interoperability of their products ...
Read more...EM Bloemfontein offers accredited training courses January 2020, ElectroMechanica
, News
The Bloemfontein branch of supplier ElectroMechanica (EM) plans to make significant inroads in the Free State region thanks to its fully-equipped training facility, focusing mainly on automation products ...
Read more...Cummins boosts production at two glass manufacturers January 2020
, News
Standby power systems from Cummins are providing extra protection at two glass-manufacturing facilities in Lahore, Pakistan, allowing production lines to always be on, and operations to continue seamlessly ...
Read more...Schneider Electric announces local manufacturing and reduced lead times January 2020, Schneider Electric South Africa
, News
Schneider Electric South Africa has announced that its PIX Easy Air Insulated Switchgear, previously 100% internationally manufactured, will now have a 68% local finishing process, reducing the customer ...
printer friendly version