The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has applauded Tranos on the quality of its products, equipment and innovations in solving some of the challenges facing the Oil & Gas, Telecoms, industrial and manufacturing sectors in the country. The Board has therefore pledged to work with Tranos, an engineering and manufacturing company.
Simbi Wabote, executive secretary of the Board, while on inspection tour of Tranos’ facility in Ikeja, Lagos, recently, to ascertain the quality of its products, said it was gladdening to note that a Nigerian company had taken the initiative to manufacture locally, products that would have been imported.
Commending Tranos, Wabote said that the products he saw in factory have exceptional quality and that he would have argued that they were imported, had he not seen the products in the factory. He further mentioned that Tranos had proven it has the capacity and technology to produce high quality Enclosures, Cable Trays and Ladders, Sockets and Switches Electrical Panels locally.
He noted that Tranos is bigger than some of the factories overseas where Nigerians rush to buy materials used in the oil gas industry.
Pledging government’s supports for Tranos as well as other Nigerian companies, Wabote encouraged Tranos to design materials that would assist the Telecoms clients against theft of Batteries and power components, especially at telecom Mast sites.
“We will work with you on your projects,” he assured.
NCDMB was established by the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act which came into effect on April 22, 2010.
Its mission is to “promote the development and utilization of in-country capacities for the industrialization of Nigeria through the effective implementation of the Nigerian Content Act.”
Responding, Jude Abalaka, managing director of Tranos, said NCDMB was always interested in growing Nigerian companies, revealing that Tranos had received support from the board in the past.
While explaining the primary focus of the company, Abalaka said Tranos was focusing on developing products, investing in resources, which included personnel, equipment, and software in order to meet customers’ needs. “This is very important for us because we exist to create values for our customers,” he said.
Abalaka said Tranos has invested hugely in world-class facilities.
“We know how driven NCDMB are in encouraging companies,” he reiterated.
While taking NCDMB officials and International Oil Companies (IOCs) members around the Tranos’ facility, Abalaka said Tranos has both mechanical and electrical engineering departments manned by engineers who do the designs of materials to be produced.
According to him, the company’s works start with in-house designs by the engineers in the departments as Tranos is an end to end manufacturing company.
Everything that is manufactured in the company first goes through the engineering design. This could be based on customer’s specifications or in-house concepts, he explained.
“This is where it all begins,” Abalaka said.
While conducting the visitors around the facilities on an inspection tour, Abalaka explained the processes each of the products on the company’s fleet underwent before they came out as a finished product suitable for consumers’ usage.
According to him, the company has equipment with capacities to perform different tasks with optimum precision level and accuracy needed, without depending on manual human skills.
The equipment ranged from simple tools to more sophisticated ones, including robots in performing some of the operations.
Tranos parades both electrical and mechanical assemblies that take care of its different products such as enclosures for generators, telecommunication equipment and enclosures, cables trays, and all kinds of metal fabrications for different purposes.
“We do these enclosures for a couple of international companies, including Cummins and SDMO-KOHLER,” Abalaka revealed, adding that “With this, we have replaced what they would normally import.”
Because of their good quality products, Cummins Power Generation stopped producing enclosures for themselves but solely depends on Tranos for all their generating set enclosures, Abalaka explained.
On safety, Abalaka said Tranos does not take the issues of safety for granted, explaining it would pay it off as a company to be safety-conscious than allow an accident to occur. This is because it is more profitable to spend enough money on safety than it would to take care of consequences of an accident.
“Safety is not just what we talk about, it is what we do. It is uneconomical for us not to be safe,” he said.
Because of its ability and capability in designing and manufacturing, and its responsiveness to proffer solutions to meet customers’ challenges, Tranos has rescued the telecom companies who were struggling with some challenges by developing a product that would solve the challenges.
“Basically, that is how we think,” Abalaka bragged.
Some of the products manufactured include cable trays for industries and oil & gas, for both offshore and onshore applications.
The trays were designed and produced to meet both International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standards with regards to weight bearing, quality product and finishing, especially in the oil & gas industry where the quality of products used cannot be compromised, Abalaka explained.
In respect of enclosures, Tranos usually manufactures enclosures for both mechanical and electrical applications, which include enclosures for power distribution panels, control and automation panels, sound proofing for generators and other rotating equipment, cabinet for telecoms, e-houses, package substations as well as any steal enclosure according to customer’s specifications.
“We have all that it takes to build,” Abalaka assured.
Because it has the capacity to build enclosures, Tranos operates with a lot of flexibility, which means it can build specific space for electrical panels which were not found in the market. This ability has made Tranos unique and different from other competitors.
Just like enclosures, the panels were built to IEC standards.
With regards to services, apart from the products made, Tranos also engages in fabrications. While engineers handle the designs, the welders take on the welding aspects. For some clients, the company only needs to do the fabrications as the drawings were already prepared by the clients.
Tranos equally undertakes maintenances for its clients, which include revamp works and repairs, either onshore or offshore.
As a subcontractor, Tranos has done revamp works for Nigeria LNG Limited (LLNG) in Bonny and Port Harcourt; manufactured cable trays for Amazon while working for Agip in Kwale; built stainless still tanks for Shell’s water treatment plant and also worked for Chevron on its fire water remediation in Lagos.
Tranos has also worked for the following companies: ExxonMobil as a subcontractor; for Chevron on its sewage treatment plant; built package substations for Schneider Electric; building of sound-proof enclosures for Cummins; building of sound proof for SDMO-KOHLER; packaged generating sets for a lot of industrial clients, among other jobs accomplished.
Tranos plans to leverage on its strength by identifying jobs that can be done in Nigeria by Nigerians, and start to produce them.
One area it plans to diverse is the production of gaskets, which are consumables for oil & gas and petrochemicals.
Apart from engaging in engineering, fabrication and manufacturing for companies and businesses, the company has also embarked on a line of products for the consumer market.
Earlier this year, the company started the production of junction boxes, switches and sockets for the consumer market.
According to Abalaka, a lot of product research and development (R&D) were conducted to arrive at the present state of the products, which meet both the British and American standards.
Commenting on the quality of products, Wabote said he was impressed with the quality of the enclosures, saying if he had seen the enclosures outside, he would not have known such were manufactured in Nigeria.
“I see Cummins generator everywhere and I thought the enclosures were brought from abroad,” he said. His assessment showed that when encouraging clients to patronise Tranos, he would be doing so with confidence, knowing that the products would meet the desired quality.
Lauding its ISO certification, Wabote charged Tranos to continue with its quality products since quality products were not compromised in the oil & gas industry.
“The quality is exceptional as far as I am concerned and it is encouraging,” he said confidently.
He pledged government’s support in areas at which the company would require support for its growth and upgrade to any required standard.
Earlier, members of International Oil Companies (IOCs) lauded Tranos on the quality of products and pledged their continued patronage to Tranos.
“I see a lot of Nigerians here who have been employed,” Wabote said proudly.
JOSEPH MAURICE OGU
