Upping levels of customer service

Engine companies are developing training packages as products evolve and the recruitment environment changes. They have for some time offered formal classroom-based product training. However the new packages and facilities take their customer service to new levels.

Wärtsilä, for example, has recently established the Wärtsilä Land and Sea Academy (WLSA) in succession to its pre-existing Customer Training unit.

“It was decided to extend the scope of supply [beyond product related training] to cover wider training services for customers as a part of Wärtsilä?s strategy to be a total service provider,” explains Jari Ullakonoja, director of WLSA.

The WLSA, through its nautical module Learn@Sea, provides specialist training, based on a competency management approach, to operators of marine-based (and land-based) power plants says Wärtsilä. It doesn?t put the onus of recruitment on the Finnish power systems company (yet), but it does put the foundations for greater support of staff recruitment and retention in place through its handling of personnel development.

At the end of last year WLSA won its first major contract, from Norwegian chemical shipping company Odfjell. Through the four-year contract Odfjell seafarers at all levels will have access to a Learn@Sea service that puts in place a competence management infrastructure and gives them advanced training logistics support, says Wärtsilä.

MAN B&W says its training, provided through the MAN B&W Diesel Academy, is constantly evolving with the content of its service programme taken from customer demands. The issue of how far development of training and hence customer service will go is one the company has clearly thought long and hard about.

“We do not think that we know the core business of our customers better than they do,” stresses Otto Winkel, vice president of MAN B&W Diesel Service. “On the other hand we are convinced that we know very close to everything about our engines. We are strong believers in focusing on our core business and area of expertise, which are our engines, turbochargers and the services needed for their safe and reliable operation.”

Set against this background is the fact that the product is evolving at a rapid rate. The company recognises that the technology incorporated in its engines, and therefore knowledge of personnel working with them, has expanded beyond traditional mechanical engineering. It plans, for example, to pass skills and knowledge of its new ME electronic engine on to personnel employed by those engine builders assembling its products under license.

“We will in the near future establish local training centres for this purpose,” says Winkel.

In Friedrichshafen, Germany, MTU has recently opened a new 87 million ($7.5 million) training centre that it says is the hub for a global decentralised network of training facilities. This network is subject to ongoing investment with recent improvements in South Africa and Turkey soon to be followed by upgrades to training facilities in Australia and the US. The training concept, says the company, embraces the entire drive system.

“Competent training is the only thing that can enable service personnel to give the professional maintenance to the engines and drive systems and therefore to achieve optimal operating results throughout their entire service life,” says Franz Stadelmann, the company?s head of service.