“Our turbochargers are integral to large engines used in heavy-duty applications like ships and power plants that run for 20-30 years on average, some as long as 50 years. These mission-critical applications need long-term care to maintain peak performance for decades,” Roland explains. “So, it’s no wonder that service makes up 70% of our business. From the start, customers have relied on both our technology and our service, as two sides of the same coin. Technology is about building the most efficient, powerful, and reliable turbochargers to match the specific application needs of our customers. Service is all about people, the quality of relationships, and being close to customers. It’s about offering our expertise and parts as needed, and using our market knowledge to understand and address customer challenges.”
Always there, wherever and whenever customers need us
One particular challenge is the need for timely scheduled maintenance and emergency support at ship repair yards or ports worldwide, so Accelleron's global service network has expanded and evolved continuously in response to that need. Today, Accelleron has around 100 service stations in over 50 countries.
The number is approximate, because Accelleron opens, closes, or relocates around five service stations each year. “Imagine thousands of ships delivering valuable goods from one side of the world to another,” says Roland. “Operators need to know that we are there, when and where they need us. It’s something we’re continually optimizing to cater to the changing needs of our customers at different ports and shipyards or power plant locations.” In the past year, Accelleron has opened new service facilities in Weihai, China, and has relocated service stations to support our customers even better in Quito, Ecuador, Manila in the Philippines, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and Cape Town, South Africa.
Roland Schwarz, President of Accelleron’s Service Division
Bringing Swiss quality and a passion for customer care to the world
Around 1,250 Accelleron staff operate those 100 service stations, offering a mix of technical, sales, project management, and logistics expertise. While the service locations may change over time, the standard of service is the same at every service station. “In the maritime industry, customers will move all over the world,” says Roland, “but they expect exactly the same standards, regardless of location.”
At the heart of this global service network is the training program at Accelleron’s headquarters in Baden, Switzerland. Every year, Accelleron’s master technicians offer about 40 courses, each attended by 8-12 service engineers from around the world. “We invest in about two weeks’ training per employee, per year, to ensure that we are bringing the Swiss standards of precision and quality to every one of our global service centers.” says Roland.
Although the service program at Accelleron demands an aptitude for engineering and business, Roland and his team are looking for more than academic qualifications, when hiring new team members. “We are looking for people with a strong service mindset,” says Roland, “who take ownership of issues and focus on solving customer problems.”
Another vital feature of Accelleron’s global service program is the commitment to spare parts delivery from Switzerland to the nearest airport anywhere in the world. Roland explains, “Our shipping customer base is a moving target. We could never have enough regional warehouses to be close to maritime customers. Proximity to our Swiss factory is key, and we rely on partners with excellent logistical capabilities around the world. We have a highly efficient operational headquarters in our Baden service center, including a central spare parts warehouse, tuned to the specifics in our industry." Three times a day, an electric-powered truck drives spare parts from the warehouse in Baden to Zurich airport, where the company has its own dedicated gate. Accelleron makes 22,000 shipments a year, all over the world – about 20% delivered the same day.
Service and technology are interlinked in an era of decarbonization and digitalization
For 100 years, Accelleron’s services and technologies have worked hand-in-hand. But the challenges and tools of the 21st century, especially decarbonization and digitalization – have made service and technology even more interdependent today.
“Digitalization is enabling us to move from preventive to condition-based, and further, to predictive maintenance,” says Roland. “We get operational data and insights from the turbochargers and the engines in ships and power plants, so that we can assess the performance of the turbocharged engine and the health of the turbocharger itself. That allows us to provide what we call “availability as a service”, meaning that we can optimize turbocharger performance, maintenance, and customer experience individually, based on operational data. This has significant new benefits for customers – up-to-the-minute clarity on equipment health, financial predictability, and peace of mind – because we can practically ensure uptime and continuous peak performance.”
Swift, smart upgrades boost sustainability and commercial outlooks
Recent years have also seen the rise of efficiency and emissions standards, as regulators look for ways to meet the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) targets set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Digital insights provide 24/7 operational clarity on turbocharger and engine performance, which not only allows Accelleron to offer “availability as a service”, but also to identify optimal windows for upgrading turbochargers with new state-of-the art components that bring immediate gains in efficiency. Upgrading turbochargers and engines with digitally enabled services and more efficient turbocharger components can not only reduce GHG emissions to secure regulatory compliance, but it can also deliver substantial fuel savings and extend the life of turbochargers, engines, and vessels for many more years.
“With these upgrades, customers are no longer thinking in terms of up to three years’ return on investment,” says Roland, “It is much more significant. We are talking about asset retention – avoiding a huge financial loss by prolonging the life of ships that could otherwise be put out of operation several years early.”
Upgrade services can also support the transition to carbon-neutral fuels. Roland explains, “Given the limited availability and higher costs for fuels like green methanol and ammonia, upgrading turbocharging components for increased efficiency will reduce overall fuel consumption, allowing these ships to cover greater distances with less fuel. That’s going to make it more affordable for ships to rely on those fuels to get from one side of the world to the other.”
Embedding service efficiency in the design of next-generation turbochargers
“Service was also a major requirement in the design of our next-generation low speed turbocharger ACCX300-L,” says Roland. “The new service-friendly design allows cartridge exchange within a single port of call, separating overhaul from drydocking schedules. It will make it even easier to get a state-of-the-art upgrade, so that operators can satisfy more stringent efficiency regulations or adapt to new fuels literally from one day to the next.”
Roland adds that digitally-enabled services offer even greater benefits in combination with the cartridge concept. The Accelleron service team can track operational and turbocharger performance on ships with the same kind of turbocharger, as they move between ports. Based on those movement patterns, Accelleron can create advanced service models that use synergies to lower service costs and speed up maintenance even more.
“For example, we can have a reserve of the same type of turbocharging cartridges available at several major ports. If data shows that turbocharging performance is suboptimal or maintenance is due on any ship within a fleet, or even on ships from different owners, we can quickly switch out cartridges at the next port,” says Roland. “Through predictive maintenance and efficient cartridge pooling, we are able to lower service costs for every ship in the group.”
Service and technology together steering a new century of sustainable progress
“We have been a trusted partner for both technology and service innovation for 100 years," Roland reflects. “And that is a legacy that we will carry into the next century. It’s exciting that on the one hand, you have digitalization and service principles embedded in next-generation technologies. On the other, there is no replacement for person-to-person relationships, understanding customer challenges, and being there at the right place and the right time with human help and expertise when customers need it. I believe that by maintaining this dual focus on service and technology as our North Star, we can help our customers to be successful in their businesses in an era of decarbonization, working towards a net zero future for the marine industry.”