The new after-sale era

The intensification of the competition and the advent of new technological resources transform the services rendering segment as the scale to win (and maintain) equipment users

The future arrived for the mobile equipment fleet management for construction and mining. Together with the growing introduction of advanced electronic technologies in pieces of equipment, new resources for the relationship to the customer are assimilated by the industry, creating a competitiveness environment in which the service packages that are offered to the user make a difference not only in their loyalty, as also in the products offer and commercialization. With that, a new concept in service rendering is quickly being crystalized in the area.

In order to help the market to better understand this transformation context, Sobratema promoted, between June 3 and 6 the M&T Parts and Services – the 2nd Technology and Management of Equipment for the Construction and Mining Segments Fair and Congress, an event with the support of 116 entities, and closed the entity’s exhibits cycle, bringing analysis and benchmarking elements for the players in the industry.

The fair was held in a 25 thousand square meter space in Immigrants Exhibition & Convention Center, in São Paulo (SP), it congregated 239 national and international exhibitors from 12 countries, representing 266 brands of the industry, constituting a privileged space in which the segment evolution could be dimensioned by its main participants. “We live a revolution in fleet management and our proposal was to use this event as the main window to show this change, with the best in our industry nowadays in the services rendering area”, says Afonso Mamede, Sobratema president. “With the progress of embedded technology, which is increasingly more sophisticated with respect to concepts and controls, it became indispensable to maintain an operational condition of assets in the highest level as possible.”

REMODELING

In this sense, the main global companies which operate in the segment are already taking the lead of trends to be on the forefront in this new context. Terex, for example, introduced first hand during event its new customer relationship program called “My Terex”. The program has the purpose to strengthening the field support with the offer of services of diagnosis, check list, oil sampling analysis and maintenance agreements, besides internal capacitation offered by Terex University, a project that received a one million dollars investment. “The purpose is to improve the field support by means of a better interactivity of the technician with the customer’s back office”, explains Alexandre Flatschart, service manager with responsibility for Terex aerial platforms, cranes and utilities areas.

For some actuation segments such as Demag Industrial, the company after-sale area is already accountable for up to 50% of the annual sales. “With a bigger products portfolio, the idea is to be able to access those customers who eventually did not buy our other pieces of equipment”, says the expert.

According to him, by using the services aggregated value, the sales process trends to be stronger, using more tools. For this reason, the after-sale should begin with the machine negotiation. “Now that the market is more sensitive to fluctuations, we clearly see the trend to combine the sale to the maintenance and service program”, says Flatschart. “Before, the commercial department treated the sale and passed it to us, and we developed the customer’s service. Now they select someone in the after-sale, as to sell machines is more difficult, with smaller margins.”

In Caterpillar this is no different. The company unified a number of remote monitoring resources, operational safety, productivity and maintenance in just one package. Introduces during MTPS, the Cat Connect allows the fleet owners to enjoy all the manufacturer’s resources to optimize the brand equipment operation.

According to the company, the system supports pieces of equipment in quarries, sanitary landfills, basic sanitation jobs and construction companies in general. Among the resource packages the company offers the Grade telemetry system, for precision leveling in earthmoving operation, load precision scale, compaction control for compactors, detecting devices using rear vision cameras, radars, tires pressure and temperature gauges and remote control for track-type tractors. “The program involves five phases, including access, information, recommendation, support and management”, explains Renato A. Sanchez, of the manufacturer’s corporate matters.

The access assumes that the manager can see all the equipment resources remotely, including hour-meter, localization, maintenance manual, electronic fences and others. The information, as detailed by the expert, should permit the complete exploration of the equipment data, including the fleet management report and Caterpillar S.O.S. program degustation.

The recommendation is about the easiness to count on the manufacturer’s support by means of monitoring the equipment conditions and diagnoses emission. “Performed by the company technicians, the preventative maintenance is the fourth item, whereas the final item is the management, which includes the maintenance complete management”, says Sanchez.

Putzmeister also remodeled its services area to meet the positioning strategies. With an investment of approximately R$ 1 million, the company introduced, during MTPS 2014, the constitution of a new technical assistance network which includes maintenance centers in Itajaí (SC) and Recife (PE). The new network has a 0800 service, a resource that – according to the company – is a pioneer in the segment of manufacturers of concrete transportation and pumping in Brazil. “The facilities have a complete machine shop structure, with tools, spare parts and technical service, besides support vehicles”, explains Felipe Rix Hrdlicka, the company after-sale director.

With the measure, the company hopes to reduce the customer service time and to increase the operators’ agility, and this should reduce the technical idle time and, consequently, will result in more profit for the group, which recently incorporated concrete centrals, concrete mixer trucks and recycling equipment to its portfolio. “Before,  there was a demand to improve the customers’ service rendering, as the customers needed to take their pieces of equipment to out head office, in Atibaia”, says the director. “Now, we can provide greater efficiency to our services.”

BMC-Hyundai made a radical option by standardizing the interface with the customers and decided to do the service rendering directly. According to Leandro Yokoti, product support national manager, the company has also centralized its Distribution Center inventory in Itatiaia (there Hyundai plant is located). From there the spare parts go to most customers and to the subsidiaries. “We have just invested more than R$ 25 million to enlarge this space, where we have an inventory with more than 40 thousand items”, says Yokoti.

Felipe Cavalieri, BMC-Hyundai president, said that presently the after-sale represents 15% of the company annual sales. The company is also master representative of brands such as Merlo and Link-Belt – and the goal is to have 25% of the company annual sales represented by the after-sale as soon as 2015. “To this end, the investments in parts reposition includes the automation of the central inventory and of the inventory of the largest of our 17 subsidiaries, located in Osasco (SP”, he says.

According to the company, the implementation of a Warehouse Managing System (WMS) helped to increase the safety and to reduce the parts receipt and liberation time. “The gain was in excess of 60%”, says Alcides Guimarães, regional parts manager. He explains that the WMS uses bar code readers to receive the orders and automatically eliminate the ordered parts from the inventory. “In other words, after receiving the order, the system sends the document to the collector, who identifies the parts to be separated and marks the part withdrawal to eliminate it in the warehouse”, he details.

RESOURCES

Another company that was adapted to follow the new reality is Volvo CE. In the services area, the company is extending its actuation with the offer of implements, spare parts, telematics, finance, and used equipment commercialization. In parts alone, the company obtains 20% of its annual sales in the Country. “Presently, our main focus in on internal competencies development”, points out Afrânio Chueire, president of Volvo CE Latin America. “We want to develop the customer and, therefore, we give a great deal of value to information sharing, as a way to stimulate a better fleet administrative management.”

In this line, the company provides three tools, which include the use of simulators (already available for articulated trucks, wheel-loaders and excavators), an operators formation center for road building equipment (the Road Institute) and telemetry solutions (which include data remote control and extraction tools).

This telematics solution, by the way, is offered in a hybrid system called as CareTrack, which permits GSM communication and via satellite and gathers information packages for mapping and monitoring, operation reports issue and diagnoses via software. The Matris, says Chueire, was developed with IT partners and is also available for other brands in its most basic version. “This pioneer software was developed more than 20 years ago, to read the operation of those pieces of equipment equipped with electronic engines”, he explains. “Before it was necessary to connect the computer, but now it became an integrated solution, remotely accessible.”

Also reinforcing the service rendering, Schwing-Stetter recently introduced its first Mobile Machine Shop, a vehicle which has the purpose to provide support in jobsites and in concrete mixing sites. Including the services of maintenance, technical support and emergency in cases of unexpected failures of pumps and concrete plants, the mobile machine shop is equipped with specific tools for hydraulic, mechanic, electrical and electronic maintenance of equipment.

Among the available tools, the main ones are an oil filtering unit, a high pressure washing device, a welding machine and a support unit for pumps operation. Special sensors connected to a trip computer also allow the problems identification and diagnoses, enabling, in a number of events, the equipment immediate repair.

According to Celso Pinheiro, after-sale manager of Schwing-Stetter, this is the first of a series of five units that the company intends to offer to the market in the next eight months. “Initially, the idea is to use them to expand the customers’ service rendering, but afterward other units can be produced for sale” he says.