A written portion of this podcast is below but be sure to listen to the full episode on your preferred podcast service.

Sivakumar Jayapal, chief service officer for ZF Wind Power

WPED: Sivakumar, when you look back at one year of Thrive, are you a happy man?

ZF Wind Power is a global leader in gearbox and powertrain production for the wind industry, we aim to empower a sustainable future with our partners. Our service supports our products. When we launched Thrive, we felt the market needed an all-encompassing service approach that helps wind park operators, OEMs and consumers get the most from wind power.

When I look back on the last year, I can only confirm it was a good idea to pioneer with the Thrive service agreements on this dynamic wind market. The fact we can deliver all types of services to guarantee continuous availability, creates some peace of mind for our partners. Thrive is enabled by digital solutions and it offers worldwide field repair, workshop services, spare parts management, partner training and a gearbox pool. It’s a global concept, with a regional and personal approach.

It’s a global concept, with a regional and even personal approach. Global and personal do not always go hand in hand. Can you explain how that works?

Sure, it starts with how we partner with our partners. We don’t see them as customers, we are business partners. We work as partners with our customers and tailor our offering to their preferences. There is no standard or fixed approach, we always develop a personalized package together with our partners which suits their business model, providing a choice to select any combination of our service offerings. If we feel our partner’s business only needs our support for spare parts management, we develop a spare parts package. You don’t need to pay for services your business doesn’t need… you only invest in these elements that make your business thrive. Thrive means “to prosper, to be fortunate” …. and we embody that definition through the power of our service.

We even support our partners to work as independent as possible. We provide them partner training, so they can serve their own business. Also, this training is not a standard training… it’s based on the needs of the partner. We have our own training centers where we welcome everyone for hands-on trainings from visual inspections to component exchanges. Or we travel to the wind site of our partner where we deliver on-site up-tower trainings. After every training the partner is fully certified, and he’ll be able to do to interventions at his own. This fastens the interventions and maximizes the turbine output.

So these personalized packages and personal partner training are your regional approach?

Oh no, this goes further.  Our worldwide service is only possible thanks to strong and experienced local service centers and teams. We have workshops spread all over the world, to guarantee short refurbish time. All of them are equipped with modern precision machineries, high class quality equipment and extremely skilled gearbox experts. Years of experience combined with strategic planning and scientific forecasting offer a lead time of only 90 days on the high runner gearboxes and the same guarantee as a new gearbox. Our logistic scope includes the pickup of repair gearboxes and the delivery of refurbished gearboxes to anywhere in the world. We convert the complex logistical system to very simple and worry-free transportation of gearboxes for our partners.

Does the recent partnership between ZF Wind Power, Vestas and ABS Wind fit in this regional approach?

Yes, a few months ago the three of us joined forces to meet the demands of regional partners in South America. With ABS Wind in Macaíba, Rio Grande do Norte, we take advantage of local resources and qualified professionals. This not only strengthens the local economy, but also guarantees high-quality service to partners in the region.
With the combination of global experience, regional resources and a commitment to sustainability, we offer high-quality services to enable continuous availability for our partners.

This podcast is sponsored ZF Wind Power

The post Wind Spotlight: Looking back at a year of Thrive with ZF Wind Power appeared first on Windpower Engineering & Development.

Sivakumar Jayapal

ZF is a global technology company supplying gear systems for vehicles and industrial technology. ZF Wind Power designs modular gearbox platforms and produces complete powertrains for wind turbines. Sivakumar Jayapal, Chief Service Officer at ZF Wind Power, talks with Windpower Engineering & Development about its new interactive service Thrive.

Below is an excerpt of ZF’s Wind Spotlight with Windpower Engineering & Development, but be sure to listen to the full episode here or on your favorite podcast app.

What is Thrive?

Thrive is ZF Wind Power’s new service brand, which we launched in 2022. As a global leader in the wind industry for the gearbox and powertrain, we aim to empower a sustainable future with our partners by our service offerings. Our unique service concept helps our wind park operators, consumers and customers to get the most from the wind power to generate limitless green energy. “Thrive” means to prosper, to be fortunate. We embody that definition to the power of our service. For us, service is not reactive, but rather being proactive. It is not only about maintaining and keeping the wind turbines alive, but about continuously optimizing to thrive and prosper.

What does Thrive’s tagline ‘For continuous availability’ mean?

With Thrive, we strive for continuous availability for our partners and their wind projects. Thanks to our customer-centric mindset, availability of the gearbox and the spare parts along with our global footprint, we can ensure the wind power continues to reach consumers 24/7 through the year.

How do you guarantee this availability?

Thrive offers a complete service package. We bundled everything together, including worldwide field support, workshop repairs in 90 days, global replacement pool, spare part management, and we also train our partners. All these are supported by our unique digitalization approach, a service powered by analytics. This includes different digital offerings like ZF’s customer dashboard, intelligent powertrain, spare part optimization. We also work as partners with our customers and tailor our offerings to their preference. That’s key because it’s not that they have to get the full package. There is no standard or a fixed approach. We always develop a personalized package together with our partners, which suits their business model, they have a choice to select in any six of our offerings.

What is the gearbox pool and how does it work?

Thrive offers an international pool for its partners. This gearbox pool contains new and refurbished gearboxes from all major brands and multiple turbine models. Using the digital Thrive platform, customers can go into zfthrive.com and order a gearbox of their choice, which will be shipped within five days. The gearbox pool provides many opportunities for our partners such as low personal stock, less downtime and replacement gearboxes when a gearbox needs service.

This podcast is sponsored by ZF Wind Power.

The post Wind Spotlight: Services powered by analytics from ZF Wind Power appeared first on Windpower Engineering & Development.

Below is an excerpt of the MISTRAS Group’s Wind Spotlight with Windpower Engineering & Development, but be sure to listen to the full episode here or on your favorite podcast app.

Lately people have been talking and writing a lot about concepts like Digital Transformation, Big Data, Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Sensors, Digital Twins, etc. How are these themes related to each other and to the future of the wind industry?

Valery Godinez-Azcuaga

Let me take you back in time to about two and a half centuries ago, when the first industrial revolution happened, we all learn about this in school. It happened in England in the middle of the 18th century. What we’d never been taught in school is that about 100 years later, there was a second industrial revolution, and this was triggered by the availability of electric power.

Now we are in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution, in which new developments in the digital domain and the connectivity with the physical world through sensors allow us to harness the potential of digital physical interaction. And this is where all these concepts like Big Data, AI smart sensors, digital twins, are part of what is called the digital transformation, which is an intrinsic part of something that is called Industry 4.0, which is the big, big changing paradigm in this fourth industrial revolution.

There is also another concept starting to appear in conversations, Wind 4.0. What is it and what is its main goal?

It’s very interesting that this new concept of Industry 4.0 starts leaking into specific aspects in different markets. And in the case of our industry, the way people refer to the application of this new Industry 4.0 is “Wind 4.0.” And what is obvious is that Wind 4.0 includes all the aspects of wind energy generation and transmission, in all the components of a wind turbine. So, in a nutshell it’s the application of Industry 4.0 concepts to the wind industry. And what is very, very important is that Wind 4.0 has as an objective to really increase wind turbine reliability, and energy production.

How can we use data to optimize wind turbine O&M and increase uptime?

All this data will offer a continuous history of the wind turbine. If you combine it correctly, the data, for example, from inspections in the cementation of the blade, the tower, the nacelle, the drive train, bearings, the blades themselves. What you’re doing is you’re creating a digital copy of the blade, pretty much like digital copies that exist of you or me on the internet by looking at what type of movies we watch, what type of things we buy online — that’s our digital history.

Sometimes we hear the expression “data-rich but information-poor.” What does this mean, and what impact does it have in the Wind 4.0 paradigm?

When you talk to people, everybody talks about data. But you can be, drowning in data but you are starving for insights, right? All this data if it’s not correctly processed, if it doesn’t have information that can be taken to take action, it really doesn’t fulfill its purpose. You can collect a lot of data, you can sensor up a wind turbine, every single component, but unless you are able to take the data, process it and present it in a way that allows the operator or the owner of that turbine to take action, that data is useless. That is the challenge that we’re facing.

This podcast is sponsored by MISTRAS Group

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