As long as people keep producing garbage, there’s no time for rest in the waste processing business. And no time for their equipment to go down. The bottom line for equipment buyers in any waste facility is uptime. That understanding is at the heart of the business strategy for the emerging leader in purpose-built waste handlers. With a line-up of hydraulic swing machines weighing in from 44,000 to 900,000 lbs., SENNEBOGEN has built a name for itself with machines that are purpose-built for each customer’s application whether it is indoor or not. The machines are delivering impressive lift capacities and precise handling in every configuration. Behind the scenes, though, SENNEBOGEN will tell you that its “secret sauce” is housed inside its 100,000 sq.ft. support complex in Stanley, NC.
The President of SENNEBOGEN LLC, Constantino Lannes,explains the thinking behind the combination head office, parts warehouse and state-of-the-art training facility. “When the Sennebogen family decided to bring their material handlers to the Americas, they knew that support would be absolutely critical to customers here,” he says. “The parts inventory here and the courses we developed for service staff and operators represent our commitment to ensuring maximum uptime for customers.”
Unlike training programs from most OEMs, SENNEBOGEN has opened the doors both to dealer personnel and to customer service crews. “At the end of the day, it is a win-win-win situation for the three parties,” Lannes continues. “The goal of our Training Center is to cultivate the nation’s largest network of technicians with specialized factory training on material handling equipment.”
To date, the Center has graduated more than 1,000 technicians through its five-day Service Level 1 program. After returning home to put their new knowledge to work, graduates are eligible for the advanced Service Level 2 course for five additional days of in-depth troubleshooting instruction. Course are also available for operator familiarization and parts training, and all offered at no cost. Customers are routinely surprised and delighted by the opportunity. As the owner of one recycling facility commented, “OEMs don’t want to show anybody else how to service their machines. That’s business for the dealer. But it’s a big advantage for us to be able to work on our own machines.”
A “Purpose-Built” Facility for Customer Support
Like the machines that SENNEBOGEN sells, the head office complex in Stanley, just outside of Charlotte, NC, was “purpose-built” to support operations throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and South America. The classrooms and instruction bays were opened in 2009, adjacent to SENNEBOGEN’s massive parts warehouse along with sales, engineering and administrative offices. The Training Center is actually “firewalled” from the building’s other operations, so attendees aren’t distracted or interrupted by the outside. It provides classrooms fully equipped with the latest teaching and e-learning technology along with the three-tiered training bay with a pit big enough for the whole class to study the machines from below. The large bay is surrounded by additional component rooms; models and breakout boards for hands-on instruction. But SENNEBOGEN’s long-time Service Manager, Jim Westlake, believes that the most valuable feature of the Training Center is the distance it puts between trainees and their everyday workplace.
“It seems to change the expectations of the principals and the customers who send their people here,” Westlake says. “They are being selective in who they send. We see more senior technicians now – the ones who are in the best position to pass along what they learn to others in the shop. Everyone sees a big difference. Since we started bringing technicians into our facility, the type of calls we get from their shops have changed – we don’t get questions about issues that were already covered in class. It works for us, and it works for our customers.”
It Takes a Mechanic to Teach a Mechanic
Roger Hardin, the Chief Trainer in the school, concurs with Westlake’s appraisal. “When technicians come here, they are not being pulled away from class to answer other questions and needs in their shop. This is no holiday camp, either. We always maintain a level of professionalism throughout the time they are with us.”
Hardin says he enjoys the program because it gives him the chance to “…give them the kind of training I wanted.” He had 41 years of practical experience as a service mechanic, including 15 years as a trainer, before joining SENNEBOGEN.
Westlake and Hardin both place a high value on hands-on instruction, and so do the attendees. “It takes a mechanic to teach a mechanic,” Hardin continues. “A student from one of our dealers spelled it out: sometimes you go to training where everything is on paper, and you can’t relate it to the real product. Here, you see exactly where to find things on the machine so you’re better prepared to troubleshoot it when you’re in a hurry in the field.”
Coast-to-Coast Knowledge Network
For dealers and customers alike, saving downtime for service and repairs is critical. Access to expert help is especially challenging for waste processors and landfill operators in remote parts of the country. Finding qualified equipment mechanics can be difficult at the best of times. As one maintenance director said “If we don’t have the people we need on our own payroll, we can end up waiting a long time for machine service. Having our own team makes a huge difference.”
More than the Sum of their Parts
For technicians to do their job, of course, they need parts. And just “over the wall” from the SENNEBOGEN Training Center is the largest and most complete inventory of material handler parts in North America. Lannes notes that this warehouse maintains stocks of every component that goes into every SENNEBOGEN machine currently in service. Vast rooms here store rows of complete booms, hydraulic cylinders and cab assemblies, along with stocks of the smallest connectors and seals. The inventory even includes a wide range of ready-to-go diesel engines. Lannes explains: “We make sure we have the exact engines available to fit into our units in the field easily. That can offer a great time-saving for customers. In one case recently, one of our distributors was told he would have to wait up to eight weeks to get an engine from its manufacturer. But we had one in stock and shipped out to him the same day!”
In another section of the facility, teams are busy assembling cable harnesses and fitting hoses to match original specs for specific machine models. Others are packaging custom sets of parts, materials and even special tools into “Uptime Kits” that consolidate everything a technician will need to complete a given maintenance task at the factory’s prescribed service interval.
Maximizing Machine Uptime
SENNEBOGEN’s parts strategy parallels its approach to training: To ensure that customers have ready access to whatever they need to maximize machine uptime. The investment in parts in the warehouse is reflected in the local inventories maintained by SENNEBOGEN distributors. SENNEBOGEN works closely with its dealers to keep the commonly needed parts for their customers’ machines nearby. “In this industry, our parts inventories are a huge advantage for customers. They appreciate that, in the US, we can ship directly to them by truck or even overnight instead of waiting for a ship to cross the ocean.”
For more information, visit www.sennebogen-na.com.