Life's a Cruise in the Sunshine State/Pages - MAN Diesel & Turbo ...

PAGE 6 DIESELFACTS 1/2010
Feature
Life’s a Cruise in the Sunshine State
PrimeServ Fort Lauderdale holds its Grand Opening and maintains a steady course
DieselFacts is sitting in a cab, an
hour north of Miami, while the Haitian
driver jabbers on a cell phone in rapid
Creole in an attempt to unravel the
mystery that is paying by credit card.
Any growing anxiety on the customer
side abates as the cabbie’s portable
reader springs into life and spits out
the requisite receipt. DieselFacts
then emerges into the tropical heat
to try and unravel the mystery that is
PrimeServ Ft. Lauderdale.
Actually, there’s no mystery at all
about the latest PrimeServ location.
It simply represents a logical
progression for MAN Diesel’s
after-sales division whose planned
expansion, both in North America
and globally, continues to reap
great rewards.
Small beginnings
From small beginnings almost a
decade ago, and after renting successively
bigger premises, Prime-
Serv Ft. Lauderdale has now established
its own, purpose-built
complex in Pompano Beach, just
next door to the city of Ft. Lauderdale.
Some 25 staff now work at
the new offices, including warehouse
staff, superintendent engineers
and technicians.
The new facilities include 7,300
sq. ft. of office space, over 10,000
sq. ft. of warehouse area, and
6,000 sq. ft of area for PrimeServ’s
North American Training Academy,
which is MAN Diesel’s dedicated
training facility for North America.
The team leader
Michael Eckart is one of the few
MAN Diesel employees who can
genuinely claim to be a native son
of Augsburg, Bavaria, the city that
is so central to the development of
the diesel engine. Born just a couple
of hundred metres from the famous
factory where Rudolf Diesel
developed his design, it was diesel
engines that brought him back
home after years studying mechanical
engineering in Wuerzburg
and other assignments around
Lake Constance.
He says: “Having personally witnessed
the demise of Augsburg’s
500 year old textile industry and
the loss of tens of thousands of
workplaces, I always look to the
future and never forget that only
change and growth will keep our
company’s proud, 250-year-old
tradition alive.”
Eckart also believes that: “Not
least, it is the team here that provides
the fuel to make the company
as a whole fly. It is the engineers
who earn the money and our colleagues
in the office who take care
of the paperwork that allows us to
grow the business for PrimeServ.”
The PrimeServ portfolio
Eckart says: “We offer not only mechanical
but also electrical services,
turbocharger services, in fact
nearly every service – mainly fourstroke
but also two-stroke – from
upgrades to maintenance warranties
and repairs. Our location here
is perfect for that because Miami
and Ft. Lauderdale are the two biggest
cruise harbours in the world
so we have a lot of customers sitting
right here.”
The cruise ships are typically en
route to destinations in the Caribbean,
north to New York, or even
further afield with Florida forming
an important stop-off point. Generally
speaking, tourism makes up
the greatest part of the Floridian
economy with visitors attracted to
such local venues as Disney World,
SeaWorld and Miami’s South
Beach with its perfect beaches
and unique architecture.
Accordingly, cruise ships form
the biggest business segment locally
for MAN Diesel. Both Port
of Miami and Port Everglades (Ft.
Lauderdale) accommodate 3-4
million cruise passengers a year
with Port Everglades claiming a
current world record of having
had 15 such liners at berth simultaneously.
Port Everglades is also
home to Oasis of the Seas, the
world’s largest cruise liner, and will
receive its sister ship, Allure of the
Seas, later this year.
Eckart says that power plants in
Central America and the Caribbean
probably constitute Ft. Lauderdale’s
second-most important
business segment. Once again,
PrimeServ’s location is eminently
suitable as PrimeServ can reach
places like Curacao, Bermuda and
the Bahamas by plane within just
two or three hours.
Cargo ships constitute another
important segment; the twin local
ports are also major players in the
American container sector.
Customer relations
PrimeServ’s daily routine keeps its
employees busy, but Eckart says
A V12-1800 high-speed engine pictured in PrimeServ Ft. Lauderdale’s Academy. The engine develops 1,324 kW (1800
metric hp) at 2,300 rpm
that “keeping the customer happy
is something that is really important
for us.” This means that customers
are contacted daily where necessary
or that PrimeServ fields calls,
typically with requests for a service
engineer or a question regarding
an invoice or general questions
about PrimeServ Ft. Lauderdale’s
service portfolio.
He states: “PrimeServ’s most
important business message is
that we want to be close to the
customer. In making them happy
and offering a really high standard
of service, we are delivering the
message that this company, its
engines and its after-sales service
represent quality.”
Spare parts
Pompano Beach has a consignment
stock of turbocharger parts
and diesel spare-parts from Augsburg
that opened simultaneously
with the office facility. It also has
turbocharger sales and enginepart
sales. Michael Eckart says:
“Whenever a customer urgently
needs parts, they can get them
promptly from us because of our
prime location. We coordinate all
the logistics from here.”
High-speed
MAN Diesel has included highspeed
engines in its portfolio since
the turn of the year when MAN
Truck & Bus transferred that part
of its business to MAN Diesel and
created the High-Speed Business
Unit. The new entity offers diesel
and gas engines in a performance
range from 70 to 1,400 kW used
in yachts, smaller working ships,
locomotives and in decentralised
energy supplies, for instance as
emergency gensets.
At the time, Dr. Stephan Timmermann,
the MAN Diesel Executive
Board member responsible for
high-speed business said: “Highspeed
engines fit into our product
portfolio extremely well. On the
one hand, we’re able to logically
supplement our product range,
while on the other we’re able to
move into a new maritime segment
that promises profitable growth for
the future.”
Eckart says: “It’s a nice business
idea to combine everything here
and have one MAN Diesel facility
at Pompano Beach.”
In fact, Florida’s long coastline,
sunny climate and innumerable
marinas and harbours act as a
magnet for smaller vessels, such
as motorboats and yachts, representing
a potentially lucrative
market for PrimeServ and the highspeed
business in general.
The business manager
Andrea Herbst is PrimeServ Ft.
Lauderdale’s Business Process
Manager. Another native German,
Herbst studied political economics
in Augsburg and joined MAN Diesel
there while still a student. Upon
graduation, she joined the company
full-time and subsequently took
an opportunity to come to Florida.
Herbst’s tasks mainly cover the
financial side of things – investments,
budgeting, invoicing and
billing. “I also look into business
process flows to see if they are
working well and try to find better
solutions if they are not. These
processes give me a good overview
of what’s going on at this facility
and throughout the company,”
she says.