Sandvik has opened a major new repair, rebuild and support centre in Orange, NSW, designed to deliver industry-leading levels of service, as well as environmental, health and safety performance to mining operations throughout the state’s Central West.

Its new Orange High Productivity Centre incorporates a modern, high-tech repair and rebuild facility, including a paint booth, along with a large warehouse operation. The facility has been purpose-built to help it better serve the needs of mines in the region, and improve safety performance in line with its customers requirements. It will also service equipment for customers from outside the region. According to Jim Tolley, Sandvik Mining’s Vice President, Sales Area Australia, the new facility is the latest example of the company’s focus on service and support for its customers throughout Australia.
“Our Orange High Productivity Centre – as one of four of these centres nationally – will set new standards for safety and environmental performance, service efficiency and turnaround times for our Central West customers.

“It has been designed with one purpose: to align with our customers’ goals and boost their productivity,” he said. “Sandvik’s service benchmarks are to ensure that our customers’ equipment remains safe and fully productive 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year – and to achieve that, nearly 75% of our staff worldwide are dedicated to customer support.” Tolley said the company’s new Orange centre was the latest example of this philosophy. “Employing 40 people, it incorporates a state-of-the-art workshop and a warehouse, each of which are larger than our entire previous facility in Orange – and because of our standardised processes and readily available spare parts, we can provide rapid and cost-efficient repairs.

“This includes the ability to rebuild equipment to as-new condition, to Sandvik’s OEM specifications and standards, and with full factory warranty,” he said.
Complementing Sandvik’s new rebuild facilities at Orange is a fleet of mobile service vehicles crewed by a fully trained field service team with the skills and experience to handle a wide range of requirements. This field service coverage extends to Cobar and Broken Hill through dedicated service centres located in those locations. “Our field service technicians can also carry out machine inspections, advise on operational and maintenance practices, and assist customer technicians,” Tolley said.

“Whether it’s scheduled or unscheduled maintenance calls, our field service technicians have the in-depth product knowledge and rapid support response to get customers’ equipment up-and-running as soon as possible. “We realise that trained, customer-focused technicians are vital to maintaining equipment and delivering productivity targets,” he said.

Field services available from the Orange High Productivity Centre include:
• Repairs and breakdown services
• Servicing assistance
• Fault diagnosis
• Machine condition audits
• Scheduled maintenance
• Service maintenance agreements
• Machine tune-ups.

In addition to its service and support capabilities, Sandvik’s new Orange High Productivity Centre will serve as its regional warehouse for the entire NSW Central West. “In most cases, we can now provide immediate replacement of parts and components for all types of Sandvik equipment used in this region,” Tolley said. “Combining our industry-standard service workshop, greatly expanded warehouse capacity and our extended field service capabilities gives us the ability to deliver reduced downtime and increased productivity for our customers.”