With vice president, service and digital, Siemens, in this interview speaks about what Siemens is doing differently in power services.
As the vice president, services and digital, at Siemens, what would you say Siemens is doing differently in power services?
At Siemens, we take pride in our local capabilities. We are a local company with global expertise. In our line of business and competitive market, we have the best local human capital, so this makes our services affordable. Also, with our Port Harcourt workshop, our turnaround time is quicker. This cannot be taken for granted, especially with our kind of customers who require their machines to be up and running 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
What is the vision behind the establishment of the Port Harcourt service workshop?
The Port Harcourt service workshop was borne out of our desire to ensure compliance with the Nigerian Content Act, in terms of material and manpower. For us, it was about how much value we could create in Nigeria in terms of localisation. We were driven by our commitment to create value, tapping into the human capital available in Nigeria and how we can do our engineering locally in Nigeria. Since we set up the workshop we have discovered how much work can be done locally without having to ship outside the country. We’re also in close proximity to our customers in the oil and gas sector, meaning we’re very accessible, although our workshop serves clients in other sectors besides oil and gas.
You mentioned that Siemens provides servicing to other customers beyond the oil and gas sector. What other customers can contact Siemens for their servicing needs? Our work at Siemens is not limited to servicing customers in oil and gas sector. We also provide power generation services, non-original equipment manufacturing servicing to FMCGS, EPCS and utility companies.
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What do customers who want to do business with Siemens at the Port Harcourt workshop stand to benefit?
We recently helped a customer that experienced a compressor breakdown on-site on an oil rig. After we looked at the level of work that had to be done, we discovered that we needed to import some vital machine parts to restore the equipment.
Rather than having this faulty compressor shipped abroad for repairs, we moved it to our Port Harcourt workshop and with our in-house capabilities, we manufactured these vital machine parts, which would otherwise have been shipped into the country. As you can imagine, this customer was losing oil production with every second that the machine was down. By manufacturing the vital part and repairing in the country, we essentially saved the client time and money.
Our operations currently have 24 field service engineers who are all Nigerians, knowledgeable and skilled in different areas of specialisation. We also have five highly qualified and experienced technicians, who provide support to the field service representatives both in the workshop and on site.
Our line of business servicing these customers is real time business, every second counts. Therefore, being close to our customers is a huge advantage that we have. In terms of value, besides saving the client money by having a good turn-around time for the client, we’re also able to address and access the root cause, by providing preventative services to ensure that our clients don’t find themselves repairing their equipment all the time.
Can you run us through some of the key services provided at the service workshop?
The workshop specifically is designed to support customers in power generation, oil and gas, and also in the utilities industry. The way we set up the shop is to be useful to customers in a general manufacturing environment. In our business, we offer gas turbines and compressor services, we also operate in the original equipment manufacturing business whereby if we have a turbine or compressor to service, we can also provide auxiliary services for that equipment.
The workshop contains state-of-the-art machinery for rotating equipment (gas turbines, compressors and pumps) repairs and overhauls; reciprocating equipment repairs and overhauls; inspection, disassembly, reassembly, and balancing of all kinds of rotors; valve repairs, testing, and certification; shot blasting and general machining and fabrication. We have different equipment in the workshop which from general engineering standpoint provides any kind of machining for equipment beyond the oil and gas sector.
We understand that Siemens acquired Dresser- Rand, a global supplier of equipment solutions to the oil, gas, petrochemical, power, and process industries. In what way does this impact Siemens’ capability?
Dresser-rand had been in Port Harcourt for about 25 years before it was acquired by Siemens in May 2015. They had strong capabilities in the non-oem industry, operations and maintenance and compression service and executing full-scale operations and maintenance contracts for customers across the oil and gas sector. They also focused on servicing not just their own equipment but extending their services to the equipment of other third-party OEMS.
In 2016, Siemens had the vision to build a workshop in Port Harcourt to be more accessible to our customers. What we did was to bring the best of both worlds into one Siemens workshop. We also bought more machines to upgrade the capacity of the workshop. The shop is well equipped creating more value for our expanded fleet in Nigeria after the acquisition of Dresser-rand.
Essentially, the Port Harcourt workshop has experienced talents and modern technology and we have also expanded the fleet and the use of the workshop beyond what it used to be. With our stateof-the-art equipment, we are pushing local content and creating value for the Nigerian economy by eliminating capital flight through our local production and capacity. Our workshop also creates an avenue for us to train our talents in-house and we can proudly say that we have 100 percent Nigerian expertise and management in the workshop.
Nigeria faces a problem of infrastructural degeneration. How does this service workshop help address this issue? Siemens is stepping further and going beyond providing repairs and servicing. Last year we set up an engineering department with an engineering manager whose job is to proactively think up solutions to address the root cause of equipment breakdown and provide preventive solutions beyond just repairs. This is a right step in developing local R&D knowledge in country.
What future development plan should we expect from Siemens’ service centres? The future is now, in my view, and we are kicking off a graduate scheme. We believe that successful companies need to replenish their talents and create a succession plan. From January 2020, we are bringing in five graduates who will be posted to various departments within Siemens in Nigeria to receive world-class training and learn about the business. Siemens is focused on creating a sustainable business and we are also preparing for the changes in the power generation sector. The fossil market is changing to alternative energy sources like wind, solar, and as the market experiences these changes, we also innovate and make changes to our business model here in Nigeria.
Could you tell us a bit about your background?
I got my first degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ilorin and went on to do a Master’s degree in Oil and Gas Engineering from the University of Aberdeen. My professional career started in 2003 when I joined the WRPC as an intern. After that, I worked briefly with NLNG as a mechanical technician. I moved on to join ABB Oil and Gas Service in the UK starting off as a controls systems engineer and took on various roles within the company. In 2010, I came back to Nigeria to join ABB Nigeria as an oil and gas sales manager. I later joined Schneider Electric Nigeria as vice president of the End User Business covering different segments of the business. In 2014, I joined Dresser-rand Nigeria as regional sales director for West Africa, covering 22 countries within the region for the rotating equipment service market. My journey at Siemens Ltd Nigeria started in 2018 as the sales director for West Africa and in 2019 I was appointed vice president, services and digital.
