Eventually, any piece of melting equipment may need to be rebuilt for various reasons—perhaps due to age, perhaps due to damage. In ideal conditions, these rebuilds can be planned and accounted for. But as most foundries know the unexpected loss of a functioning furnace and its power supply can be devastating to productivity and needs more than a simple solution.
Instead, it needs world-class customer service.
In the last few days of June 2024, during a scorching Mississippi summer, steel foundry Southern Cast Products found itself in exactly this position when its furnace was shut down and all work stopped. By the end of the day, the company faced a serious problem: in addition to a downed furnace, its attached 1500-kW, 1200-Hz VIP® Power-Trak® power supply had been affected too.
Main furnace down, power supply out of commission, and orders to fulfill. The nightmare for any metalcasting company.
Even though their unit was installed nearly a decade ago, Southern Cast Products understood they could rely on Inductotherm to figure out the best path forward. They made the call—and we’re so glad they did. When we heard about their situation, our aftermarket OEM support team was ready to assist in any way we could.
That same week, a field service technician visited Southern Cast Products to inspect the system in person. A thorough assessment found that the damage was more significant than could be completed on-site, so the unit would have to be shipped back to Inductotherm’s facility. By working closely together through the July 4 weekend, the power supply was ready for shipment to Inductotherm just two weeks after it went down.
By the middle of July, Inductotherm technicians were at work on the damaged VIP® Power-Trak® unit at the workshop in New Jersey. They were able to identify which parts of the unit could not be repaired and would require replacement.
However, much of the VIP® Power-Trak® unit was still functioning perfectly well—and the cabinet shell, having mostly done its job of protecting the internal components, needed only a new coat of paint. With the damaged parts removed, the technicians got to work on a refresh of the unit rather than ground-up reconstruction.
Over the course of nine weeks, our team made progress on the unit. After replacing the damaged components, we focused on not just restoring but upgrading the VIP® Power-Trak® unit to top-of-the-line quality.
During the years since Southern Cast Products bought the unit, several aspects of Inductotherm technology have been advanced and improved. The damaged unit was updated with the latest iteration of our EZ Control system for enhanced melt monitoring, a feature that had not yet been available on the original power supply at the time of its construction. A water conductivity meter was added, too.
While the VIP® Power-Trak® unit was being worked on, Southern Cast Products still had customers waiting for their orders—an uncomfortable position for a company to be in. But throughout the nine weeks, Southern Cast kept their stakeholders notified of the progress of the power supply’s repair.
As Inductotherm’s new District Manager for the Southeast region, I was determined to show the same dedication to customer service and satisfaction that guides Southern Cast Products and worked to ensure they had the same kind of treatment. While the repairs were underway, Inductotherm provided weekly progress reports with the foundry, so they could share that information with their customers. Those reports kept Southern Cast Products informed and helped them address their customers’ concerns.
Southern Cast Products received its renewed VIP® Power-Trak® unit, not only with an upgrade to ensure the unit will last for decades to come, but an entire week ahead of schedule, and I was glad to get them back up and running as quickly as possible and as smoothly as possible, to avoid delaying their operations any further.
Our goal was to ensure that Southern Cast Products experienced the best customer service available, and we accomplished that. “It felt like we had the VIP treatment,” according to a Southern Cast Products representative. “And that’s not an intentional pun, but that’s truly how it feels.”
Bart Barbee is the Inductotherm Corp. Southeast Associate District Manager. Contact him at [email protected].