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Are we prepared to repair industrial equipment following COVID19?

 

 

APRIL 2020

 

Repairing vital automation equipment and industrial technologies ā€“ the big challenge ahead.

 

In a first-of-its-kind webinar hosted by ABI Electronics, we heard from four international guest speakers who shared valuable insights and inspired everyone in the audience to be passionate about modern electronic repair.

 

webinar

 

 

Background:

 

This crisis will, unfortunately, wipe out many companies making the support of critical systems disappear. To keep production line running and the core business operational, organisations will require technical staff that stand up to the challenge of maintaining aging assets with little or NO support from the original manufacturer. Industry leaders believe therefore that if you work in electronics, automation, robotics, mechatronics now is the time to seriously consider upping your repair and maintenance skills down to the component and PCB level. Servitisation will also drive demand for skills. And brands that don't embrace this new reality will have to prepare to exit the market.

 

People from all over the world joined in live to hear from:

  • Ricardo Rodrigues (Besserdruck). Ricardo leads a team of repair engineers and technicians in Brazil servicing complex circuit boards used in offset printers.
  • Kanat Mamonov (Alstom Transport, Kazakhstan). Kanat played a key role in establishing Alstomā€™s state-of-the-art repair centre for modern traction and braking systems in Central Asia.
  • Panagiotis Tsepnidis (Epsilon Logic Ltd). Panos is an expert in hard-to-find faults and his company Epilson Logic will repair any faulty industrial kit.
  • Sankalp Madlik (Smart Eyes). Electronics repair specialist working with the food processing industry in southern Chile.
  • Willian Santos, ABI Electronics (Host), a UK-based manufacturer of advanced testing, diagnostics and component-level repair equipment for industries like transport, aerospace, automotive and defence.

 

Panelists perspectives:

 

Ricardo Rodrigues has over 20 years of experience in repair and maintenance of industrial technologies. He co-founded Besserdruck in 2011 which rapidly became a reference for the commercial printing industry. Ricardo believes that there will be major reductions in budgeting in every company. And when you add obsolescence to the mix, developing a robust repair and maintenance strategy for electronic circuit boards becomes of absolute vital importance for any business.

 

Kanat Mamonovā€™s work had a direct impact in helping ALSTOM achieve cost reductions while becoming self-sufficient in providing maintenance and repair for locomotives running in Kazakhstan which were made by another company. Whereas electronic circuits represented a huge headache for ALSTOM in the past, the repair centre can now detect, repair and prevent faults on PCBs quickly thanks to a team of highly qualified engineers empowered by a comprehensive fault finding equipment and strategy.

 

Panagiotis Tsepnidis or simply ā€œPanosā€ is passionate about repair and big advocate of the ā€œRepair, donā€™t wasteā€ philosophy. Throughout his 20-years career, Panos delivered critical repair and maintenance services to companies operating in food processing, energy, steel manufacturing, among others. Panos has an impressive track record in troubleshooting and calls engineers and technicians to embrace it instead of expecting someone else to come and ā€œsort it outā€. Electronic repair is fun, fulfilling and absolutely vital, he says.

 

Donā€™t let Sankalp Madlikā€™s 26 years of age deceive you. Heā€™s been passionate about repair and maintenance since he was 6! Working with undersea robotics while studying in India, Sankalp developed skills which are now being employed in another part of the world, in Chile. There, he drives the electronic repair lab and help his company Smart Eye provide invaluable services to the food processing industry, a vital part of the Chilean economy. In this industry, 1 hour of machine downtime translates in US$300,000 of lost revenue. Sankalp believes that maintaining a ā€œcan-doā€ attitude should be in every electronic engineer and technicianā€™s top priorities these days. Empowered by the right repair and fault finding gear, the sky is the limit for those who dive into this profession, according to Sankalp.

 

Webinar Podcast

 

 

In summary, having the ability to repair electronic, automation and robotic technologies and assets can be the difference between making a profit or loss, lay-off or employment. The road to recovery will be long. But it will also bring exciting opportunities for those who canā€™t wait to show how much they can save with their skills, ingenuity and can-do attitude.


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