MAG sees service business growing

COMPANIES offering their customers a high standard of service achieve impressive customer retention and loyalty rates, and enhance their customers’ customer competitiveness and sustainability.

MAG (G?ppingen, Germany) customers from the automobile and supplier industry expect – and get –a level of service, whether it be in planned maintenance and repair work or in unplanned repairs, overhauls, retrofits and retooling.

During a retrofit, MAG gives machines nearing the end of their service life a complete technological update, the picture shows a VDF turning centre from Boehringer before and after the retrofit

Michael Heinz, managing director of MAG IAS GmbH responsible for Sales Field Market and Global Service, said: "Our entire service is set up so that we can support our customers in the best possible way. Industry customers want to produce a defined level of quality efficiently and we support them effectively in this."

MAG handles the entire process including project management. Fully customized maintenance schemes and spare-parts concepts – including what parts need to be kept in stock, what needs to be replaced, and overhauled when –  is part of this service and support. This extends to regional service centres at the customer's production sites.

"We have many decades of experience in customer service. We have pooled this expertise specifically to improve our service still further and provide even greater support to our customers," Mr Heinz said.

Explaining the scope of customer service, he added: “Quite simply through an all-round service which starts with the concept of the machines and extends from maintenance and repair to retrofits and complex retooling.”

Service packages are tailored to the needs of individual customers, which include service-support centres on customer premises at automobile manufacturers with large transfer lines for example. “Aside from the classic spare part business, if you can retrofit entire transfer lines within a few weeks during company holidays, you give the customer a major benefit as he can continue producing and does not have to wait months for new machines,” Mr Heinz pointed out.

Retrofit or overhaul?

Ingenious service concepts at MAG aim to reduce machine stoppages still further.
When a machine loses its precision after 10 or 15 years of use, the customer has to face the question of whether to have it overhauled or to arrange for a complete retrofit to be carried out. Either alternative has the advantage in that the machine is available and ready for use again within a short period of time and at a cost of up to 30% lower than a new acquisition.

"When we overhaul a machine tool, we only replace the worn components and when we carry out a retrofit of the machine, it is given a complete, technological update," explained Jochen Wiedmann, director of Operations. "Admittedly this takes a little longer, but the customer then gets a completely overhauled machine, which is technically up-to-date."

According to requirements and the customer's situation, MAG either replaces the parts and components on the customer's premises or collects the machine and takes it to the Retrofit Centre. In this way, the customers benefit from MAG's know-how as an OEM supplier. Even the spindles are produced in-house by CORCOM in Rottenburg, Germany.