Strong arguments in favour of BMA Russia
The employees of BMA Russia receive regular training at BMA in Braunschweig, and they are committed to sharing this knowledge with their colleagues in Russia. In summer 2013, BMA Russia in Voronezh hosted a workshop for leading experts from the sugar factories belonging to the Dominant group of companies. BMA’s latest products and state-of-the-art sugar production methods were presented at this event.
Another of BMA Russia’s assets – besides its staff – is the Voronezh spare parts warehouse. It stores more and more parts for BMA equipment such as centrifugals or extraction towers. During the 2013 campaign, customers only rarely had to wait for parts to be delivered from Germany, as they were usually in stock at Voronezh.
These two factors are strong arguments in favour of BMA Russia’s services. Within just a short time, they have demonstrated to the managers of many sugar factories the benefits of outsourcing centrifugal diagnostics and repairs to a specialist contractor. During the last three campaigns (2011–2013), BMA Russia’s service engineers commissioned a total of about 200 batch-type and continuous centrifugals in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Egypt, Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan, 125 of them in Russian sugar factories.
Reliable services for centrifugals
At the start of the 2013 campaign, 25 Russian sugar producers had already signed service agreements for their centrifugals with BMA Russia. Detailed diagnostics and responsible high-quality repairs using only OEM parts ensured reliable centrifugal operation throughout the campaign. Any faults were remedied by BMA Russia’s service engineers within just a few hours of receiving a service request.
One such example of a rapid service response was a fault on the Siemens frequency converter of the B1300 centrifugal for A product at the Cheremnovsky sugar factory, which occurred in October 2013. Within 24 hours of receiving the service request, the service engineer had found a rare manufacturing fault on the Sinamics module. It then took BMA Russia’s logistics team in close collaboration with colleagues from Germany only a few days to deliver the required module from Germany to the Altai region and install it.
During assembly supervision in Russia and other CIS countries in the period 2011–2013, some engineering contractors were found to have deviated significantly from the manufacturer’s recommendations in designing the substructures. Reinforcing the inadequate supporting structures resulted in additional material costs and delays for the customer. This is why BMA Russia today offer not only assembly supervision and the commissioning of centrifugals, but also the design of the substructures and supply of the necessary cable material.
Although the services provided mostly relate to centrifugals, BMA Russia’s process engineers also deal with other BMA equipment. Together with colleagues from Germany, the Russian engineering team has commissioned a new extraction tower for the Slutsky sugar combine, and brought the extraction unit at the Uspensky sugar factory up to date.
Project documentation increasingly important
Engineering services account for an ever greater share of BMA Russia’s work, both on the domestic market and outside Russia. The engineering team collaborates closely with its counterpart at BMA Germany. Orders have included, for instance, preparing the project documentation for construction of a new sugar factory in Uzbekistan.
In October 2013, BMA Russia were awarded a contract for verification and validation of the project documentation for conversion and upgrade of the Primorsky sugar factory to a beet processing rate of 6,000 t/d. The documentation was found to have such serious errors and omissions that the conversion concept had to be revised from scratch. Particularly critical errors were found in the design of the sugar house, which determines the sugar yield as well as energy and prime cost savings.
BMA Russia were commissioned to prepare a new set of project documentation. The engineering was based on the latest methods, using both BMA equipment and other Western manufacturers’ technology. BMA Russia’s engineering team worked with a dedicated software that permits a process analysis of each station of a sugar factory.
Process management for Russia and beyond
It is no secret that staff turnover in Russian sugar factories has risen considerably in recent years. As a result, the plants are slowly but surely left without the required process management. BMA Russia have stepped into the breach, offering their process engineering services for production processes. These involve performing a process analysis using a dedicated software, and submitting recommendations for improving critical areas. The services are offered to sugar factories both in Russia and outside the country. In autumn 2013, for instance, members of BMA Russia’s team were invited as consultants to attend the commissioning of a sugar factory in Mongolia.
Zhambul Zhuasbekov
BMA Russia
assistance@bma-ru.com