Making the most of maintenance

“Machine maintenance matters, of that there is no doubt,” says Starrag UK’s service manager, Jim Bradley.

“You wouldn’t expect your car to run reliably without regular servicing and the same is true for a machine tool. The investment in regular maintenance, to ensure the machine is running at optimal levels, is essential and it’s effectively an investment in a user’s production and, therefore, their livelihood.”

Starrag UK ensures it is equipped to the highest possible level to give customers the utmost confidence in investing in its state-of-the-art machine ranges.

It has a team of 20 customer-facing service specialists covering the whole of the UK and Eire, including 13 highly experienced, highly-trained and skilled ‘mobile’ service engineers who each have an average of 15 to 20 years’ experience of Starrag machine technologies.

The engineers can deal with every aspect of machine installation and service (and, if they occur, breakdowns) across the numerous machines available from those manufactured and supplied by Starrag – from the ranges of Berthiez, Bumotec, Dörries, Droop+Rein, Ecospeed, Heckert, Scharmann, SIP and Starrag itself.

“With such a broad machine range, we obviously make sure our engineers have invested a lot of time in knowing, in-depth, the many intricacies of each machine type,” says Mr Bradley. “It normally takes at least two years for an engineer to attain the appropriate levels of electrical and mechanical knowledge.

“The sole intention is to ensure customers’ valuable investments perform as they should but also, if a breakdown occurs for whatever reason, the machine can be brought back into production in the quickest possible time.”

Flexible options

In addition to offering annual preventative maintenance plans and a Serviceplus programme – where an annual fee covers every eventuality and guarantees service response times, inspection and repair, as well as in some cases guaranteed uptimes – Starrag UK also carries out ad hoc service calls.

“While around 70% of our customers are signed up to our planned/preventative maintenance schemes, it is clear that not everyone prefers such a regulated regime,” Mr Bradley adds. “They make their own judgement between machine efficiency levels and uptimes on machines that are supplied with warranty levels that can extend from 12 months to three years.

“So, our customer service operation is also geared up to deal with urgent callouts. These are usually classified as either ‘machine still operating’ or ‘tool down’ issues, the latter being instances where a machine has stopped completely and is therefore not earning.

“Our response mechanism, which is determined globally by Starrag and measured by a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) – is based on next-day delivery of parts and: a four-hour response after a customer call to determine the plan of action (which could simply be support by phone); an engineer on-site within 48 hours; and a total repair time within 56 hours.

“We’re constantly being measured by these KPIs and I’m pleased to say that we have a 95% record on engineer onsite calls and a 100% record on all tool down cases.”

Highlighting that Starrag machines are not necessarily simple machines where service/breakdown issues take just five minutes to solve, Mr Bradley says customers understandably expect Starrag UK service engineers to be experts in every discipline.

“In addition, for some of our larger users – those, for example, running multiple machines – we also have engineers onsite permanently. Or where users have their own teams of skilled maintenance staff, it may be a case that our role may simply be providing access to specialist software routines for users to dial-into to achieve ‘patch repairs’.

“In addition, certain machines can have Starrag’s innovative Uptime Package embedded into the control system to alert users to unpredicted downtime.”

Made to monitor

Clever software routines continually condition monitor machine characteristics such as thermal, temperature and power consumption and frequencies across all main axes, as well as overall process conditions including potential collision monitoring. When necessary, automatic alerts highlight any inconsistencies.

The importance of machine reliability – and the role of machine suppliers in enabling users to achieve optimum machine operating levels – is also emphasised by Dr Bernhard Bringmann, managing director of Starrag AG.

“Building and supplying functional machine tools is not necessarily the main challenge in today’s manufacturing arena,” he says. “Rather, the quest is for machine suppliers to create true partnerships with customers where every aspect of the production process is closely scrutinised then optimised.

“Machine reliability, of course, underpins this mentality and preventative maintenance is crucial. Starrag’s machine life cycle monitoring regimes – which are driven by FMEA and are applied to individual machines over a five/six-year cycle – enable users to plan effectively for planned maintenance/parts replacement before breakdowns occur.”

Mr Bradley concludes: “There is a critical balance between cost of service (in any of its guises) and the cost of lost production. I spend around half my working life visiting customers and discussing with their production managers and machine operators the challenges they face and how Starrag UK can help meet them.

“I also spend a lot of time detailing how planned service can effectively fix problems before they happen, illustrating how planned preventative maintenance is an investment rather than a cost.”

Service options throughout the supply chain

The idea of planned/preventative maintenance and the use of the Starrag Serviceplus maintenance concept is relevant to Starrag machines and users of every size and in every industry sector.

Starrag UK’s director of sales and applications, Lee Scott says: “The benefits of regular servicing are clear to both OEMs and subcontractors at whatever levels in the supply chain – and that includes users of our new range of Heckert machines, a series of horizontal machining centres that break new ground in cost-competitiveness and productivity, as well as speed (traverse rates up to 80m/minute). These machines are configured by a modular build concept that enables the machines to be delivered in just 12 weeks.

“Unreliable machines are a bad investment for any company – which is why Starrag not only manufactures highly reliable machines in the first instance, but also why it has a high focus on aftersales/service.”