At your service: Behind the Scenes of Cummins Engine Support Network in Europe
Eddy Bosker and his top-level service team keep the show on the road
Cummins is renowned the world over for the quality and durability of its engines, with some examples still in working order decades into their life.
As with all mechanical equipment, the trick to longevity and maintaining operational performance is continual care and attention, faithfully observing the recommended servicing intervals and using genuine replacement parts and approved lubricants.
What happens when a Cummins engine develops a technical fault and comes offline is what keeps the Central and Northern Europe Regional Team on their toes, ready to respond with speed and skill to diagnose and then fix the issue, keeping downtime as short as possible.
The team of 60+ specialist Cummins employed technicians is led by Dutchman Eddy Bosker, who is based in Dordrecht in the Netherlands. The technicians are typically out in the field, on site with customers, or active in dedicated workshops in the region.
For some high-intensity customers operating around the clock, for example in the mining sector and rail passenger service, Cummins has technicians embedded on-site.
In his more than three decades with Cummins, Eddy has supported customers across every business sector in a multitude of situations, either as a specialist field service engineer himself or as leader of a team whose goal is to keep Cummins customers happy and productive.
Each and every day, Eddy’s unit of senior technicians is supporting Cummins customers by dealing with maintenance, repairs and sometimes complex technical issues affecting Cummins engines and generators in markets like automotive, power generation, marine, industrial, rail, and mining.
It’s no exaggeration to say they are on the front line of European industry.
The Cummins product range stretches from 2.8- to 95-litre engines and power generator sets up to 3500 kw, so a breadth of knowledge and experience is vital to make the grade as specialist Cummins technician.
For the past three years, a dedicated service team in Germany has supported a major train manufacturer in maintenance and repair of fuel cell-powered rail cars.
"We had to hire new technicians with different knowledge and skillsets to handle these products as this is frontier technology and nobody has the experience," said Eddy. "We embraced the product and invested in two different work centres in tooling, training, processes and procedures. It was a steep learning curve.
"Cummins has also been expanding in the electrolyser business, where we build, maintain and repair equipment that converts green electric power into hydrogen. We are at the early stage of this programme and exciting times are ahead."
Field service technicians are the cream of the Cummins crop within the regions they serve, selected for their knowledge, technical ability and people skills.
“Technical knowledge and experience is all well and good but we also want our technicians to be able to communicate effectively with our customers,” says Eddy.
"What we don't like is so called 'dust-cloud' technicians: the ones that appear, do their trick, disappear and no-one knows exactly what has been done. Our technicians are on the front line and are ambassadors of our brand. They have the right soft skills and know how to start and finish a job properly."
To make the service organisation a smooth-running machine, Cummins has experienced office teams, based mainly in its distributor branches in the different countries.
Customer service advisors and representatives take the customer calls, convert them into service orders, schedule the intervention, provide quotations, collect the parts needed and support the technicians until the job is finished.
Together with a dedicated administration team, the office employees, whom Eddy describes as the “lubricant” of the organisation, process invoices and warranty claims and undertake other key behind-the-scenes tasks.
"The role of the office team can't be underestimated. They must understand the customer product, the installation layout, more or less visualise their requests or complaints to make an intervention successful."
Eddy says the team occasionally deals with issues that are hard to diagnose and where the technician needs extra support. Such situations are reported back to colleagues at Cummins Care so trending and repeating issues can be spotted.
Cummins Care is a 'hotline' service available to all customers and service providers of Cummins products, including original equipment manufacturers, distributors, dealers and end user customers. The aim is to deliver a response within 24 hours.
There are three levels of attention available through Cummins Care: the first is where the answer is readily available, perhaps already in published form, and that can take a matter of minutes.
If the answer doesn’t fall to hand, Cummins will involve its high-capability team but will still strive to get a response within 24 hours.
When a query has to be escalated to Level 3, an expert Cummins Field Service Engineer (CFSE) gets involved, and a site visit can be arranged within days, accompanied by a field service technician.
The field experts use sophisticated tooling including dataloggers and remote connect equipment to collect data to analyse and understand how customers are using their Cummins-powered equipment so any recurring problems can be identified and remedies applied.
“With the lessons learned we will update the local service departments on repair procedures, troubleshooting techniques, product updates and tooling, and with Cummins Care on site they deliver on-the-job training to technicians.”
Rising to the toughest of tasks
For obvious reasons, Eddy won’t discuss individual customers but he’s happy to share a couple of examples of recent challenges tackled by his team.
"We were called out to look at a thermal incident involving a practically new machine. We established the problem was oil leaking onto the exhaust, and on detailed inspection we could see the root cause was a hose routed on the wrong side of the heat shield.
“We reported back to the original equipment manufacturer, and they jumped on the design fault which was putting at risk their machines across the world.
"Another time, we established that we needed to exchange a large engine on a power generation project installation in Germany. The only trouble was the genset was installed on the roof of a tall building, and the building was on the flight path close to the local international airport.
“We needed to get a bunch of work permits arranged with the customer and airport facilities, special frames installed, a road closed and a telescopic crane in place.
“We were told the job would take several weeks to complete, but after proper preparation with a selected team of service guys we had that engine changed in a single day.”
Data centres are one of the biggest growth areas for Cummins and among the most critical in terms of technical back-up. Cummins has emergency contracts in place where it says it will respond within four hours.
Another area where Eddy expects Cummins technical know-how to come into play is with bus operators. "The market is changing toward electric buses, but the existing fleets will stay in operation for the foreseeable future. Replacement engines and proper support are needed to keep them going.
"We are working with an operator in the Netherlands where they have traditionally handled repairs and maintenance themselves. Recently, they asked for our help in keeping their fleet operating until 2030 without an enormous cost to them. We're now working together to take away their concerns."
Mining equipment giant Komatsu is a global partner of Cummins, and since winning a big contract for dump trucks in the Nordics region, Cummins’ service team has been heavily involved in maintenance and repair activities in an operation that runs 24/7, all year round.
"In one location, we have a cost-per-hour contract for 17 trucks, which is interesting from a business perspective. The work is linked to our new Master Rebuild Centre (MRC) in Krakow, Poland, where the overhauls are done."
Eddy says the art of his team’s work is to adapt continuously to changing market expectations, understanding that diesel engines and diesel-powered generators will be around for many more years, potentially decades, but focusing more and more on the new technologies using batteries, fuel cells and electrolysers.
“One thing is common for all businesses,” says Eddy, “the need for service will continue whatever product they use.
"Making our technicians successful is my main driver and the office teams have to support that goal. Therefore the slogan 'service is not a department, it's an attitude' feels tailor-made for me.
For more information about Cummins care solutions and our service support network, click here:
Cummins Central and Northern Europe Service Network
- 60 field technicians
- 10 specialist fuel cell technicians at centres in Frankfurt and Bremervoerde, east of Hamburg
- 6 specialist mining technicians embedded with operations in Finland and Sweden
Cet article fait partie de la 2025e édition du magazine Cummins Europe. Pour lire d'autres articles européens, cliquez ici :