Alfa Laval Drives Service Excellence With Remote Assistance

By Sarah Nicastro, Field Service Evangelist, IFS

Alfa Laval is a Swedish company founded in 1883 that is a world leader within the key technology areas of heat transfer, separation and fluid handling. With more than 3,700 patents, Alfa Laval provides worldwide solutions in areas that are vital to society, including energy, pharmaceutical, marine and food. The company has over 17,000 employees, including more than 700 field service engineers, that help customers in nearly 100 countries.

As a product manufacturer with deep history, Alfa Laval has had an eye on advancing its service focus for quite some time. “Service has become an increasing strategic focus for Alfa Laval as we have a huge, installed base with which we need to continue to position ourselves as a trusted partner,” says Cedric Domont, Global Service Sales Director at Alfa Laval. “Service is a key enabler of differentiation and has a critical impact on customer experience. These are the major reasons that Alfa Laval’s focus on service has, and will, continue to increase.”

Digital Transformation is Key to Advancing Service Goals

Alfa Laval has recognized the role digital transformation will play in achieving its ultimate Servitization vision. “I would divide our technology focus into three categories,” says Jens Pulczynski, Manager Global Service Operations at Alfa Laval. “The first is connected products – we have, for some time, embedded our products with connectivity that will allow us to remotely monitor the status and operations of equipment which will increase our service value proposition. The second is remote guidance, which we began investigating last year as a better way to provide expertise to our field service engineers. Then, as COVID-19 hit, we recognized the potential it had in customer-facing capacities and decided to speed our investment in the technology.”