Alberton-based lifting company Konecranes Southern Africa reports that it has established a full parts distribution centre to service the African continent.

The parts distribution centre, which became fully opera- tional in June last year, will supply Konecranes parts – as well as stock parts for other makes of cranes and hoists –to diverse brands of cranes and hoists, including machine tools.

In addition, the company offers accelerated delivery services with its speedy manufacturing of spare parts for cranes and hoists.

The new service centre is based at Konecranes’ current premises in Johannesburg and is backed-up by Konecranes’ central global distribution centre in Hyvinkää, Finland.

By means of reverse engineering, Konecranes is able to manufacture replacement parts for a diverse range of lifting equipment and machine tools in accordance with original-equipment manufacture (OEM) specifications, through the acquisition of several OEM drawings archives, including online access to hundreds of detailed engineering files and drawings.

Meanwhile, the company notes that it is able to ensure competitive prices owing to its global procurement operations.

o efficiently deal with enquiries, a centralised email system, Efecte, will be used for spare parts enquiries. “Efecte simplifies and improves the management of enquiries being received on a daily basis,” says distribution centre manager Celeste Viljoen.

A team of Konecranes management staff are on hand to assist clients. “We are aiming for a turnaround time within 24 hours, depending on the request,” says Viljoen. The spare parts service centre operates day and night, every day of the week, to meet any demand.

Viljoen explains that prices and availability have changed dramatically. Konecranes had to increase its stockholding significantly, which had a positive impact on its delivery, as its punctuality increased six-fold in the first three weeks since the new distribution centre started running.

Konecranes service, sales and marketing director John MacDonald says this is an honour to Konecranes Southern Africa as there are only 13 Kone-cranes distribution centres which service the 47 countries in which it operates. It took sev- eral months of planning to receive final approval from Konecranes Global Parts Dis-tribution. “The approval gives Kone-cranes Southern Africa another major string to our bow in terms of growing Konecranes’ crane and hoist business, as well as the service and maintenance on offer for all makes of cranes in Africa.”

Meanwhile, a custom spare parts programme offers clients a tailor-made parts inventory to assist in cost cutting and increasing uptime.

An evaluation will assess which parts are deemed critical and ensure that those parts are kept on site, as opposed to being bought on an “as needed” basis, while a parts specialist is able to recommend a specific spares package that best suits budget constraints and which is also appropriate for the age, make, model and applications of a crane.