Deck gear company reports service success

According to Hatlapa, orders for new vessels are declining due to the economic downturn, so service, repairs, alterations and spare parts delivery are of growing importance. Hatlapa Uetersener Maschinenfabrik says that it is aware of the potential that these aspects could have in driving a profit. The 450 employee-strong organisation with its headquarters near Hamburg, Germany, has created a department whose core responsibility it is to take on special assignments with a more flexible and quicker response time.

“This means huge time savings for the ship owners, freighters and ship managers as the task force can assist them a lot quicker”, says the company’s service manager Hartmut Opitz.

The first point of contact at Hatlapa when a vessel needs assistance is the marine engineers. This improves response time, which was recently shown when a damaged ship could be repaired very quickly, and on another occasion Hatlapa enabled a cruise ship to continue its journey to the Caribbean on schedule. In one instance the company successfully exchanged a winch in what it says was a record time of six weeks, rather than the predicted six months, thus saving the ship owner valuable time.

“Another time, Hatlapa showed its ability to respond to sudden changes to a customer’s needs and was able to bring the delivery date forward by a month”, proclaims Opitz.

For instance, a German containership had a collision in the North Sea, colliding with a much larger vessel, and the steering gear had been damaged. The collision had been so severe that the 260m long ship had a leak measuring the height of the port-side engine room. As water continued to run through the leak, the vessel was towed to shallower waters in order to prevent the ship from sinking. During the accident, a fire had also started onboard but could be extinguished by the crew: three of the 900 containers went overboard, the crew suffered from smoke inhalation and had to seek medical assistance –the journey to the destination in the Caribbean was definitely over.

That was the scene when Hatlapa received a call from a ship owner in Hamburg the following morning. Both of the combined anchor and mooring winches in the ship’s bow had been completely damaged in the accident and had to be replaced, and the vessel had to go through a complete overhaul. The ship owner had originally been told that the delivery time for the replacement winches was six months. However, the Hamburger ship owner did not want to wait that long and started making phone call to different companies selling deck machinery.

Opitz received all of the data of the damaged machinery via e-mail and discussed with the different departments within Hatlapa how they could provide a solution to the dilemma swiftly. The specialist winches that the damaged vessel had had on board were no longer in stock, but it was possible to gain the four much needed winches from another customer’s order and assemble them so that they made up the two specialist winches, that matched the specification of the winches from the damaged vessel.

“Make two into four – a lucky streak and challenge at the same time”, was what Opitz was able to tell the ship owner on the same day. A particular challenge, as the chain sprockets had to be manufactured in house, due to very long lead times. Hatlapa was then asked to put together a formal quotation for the delivery and fitting of the ordered machinery. Opitz spoke to all departments involved to start the quoting process and had an estimate ready the next day: with a lead time of nine weeks for delivery and installation of the machinery. However, this was still too long for the ship owner.

This is when the Task Force Service team stepped in. The group was created three years ago for cases just like this. Within this group, department managers from engineering, purchasing, service, sales and production are involved. The group of specialists investigated how to shorten the lead time.

“We have come to the conclusion that in special cases like this, with considerable effort, the lead time could be reduced to seven weeks”, recalls Opitz. This included shift work and overtime on weekends. The ship owner was reportedly delighted, and approved the order only 16 days after the collision.

Six weeks later, a week earlier than discussed, the specialist job was delivered from Uetersen to the repairs shipyard in Hamburg and two weeks later the unlucky vessel was already back in the water –not even three months after the collision. In eight weeks the multipurpose vessel had been restored to its original condition.