History and background
Alfa Laval is a large leading global company, engineering and manufacturing equipment for the marine industry. The company offers a portfolio of different products, all within the context of steam, heat, oil treatment and safety solutions. Apart from the marine business, Alfa Laval supplies products to the industrial/land area, together with offshore (floating production systems). Alfa Laval acquisitioned Aalborg Industries in 2011. Both Alfa Laval and Aalborg Industries have a long history offering a variety of services on their products.
Product and service portfolio
Alfa Laval products can be found on most ships and in most power plants worldwide, operating together with a wide variety of applications and processes. As a truly global supplier with a full network of service and support, Alfa Laval provides strong technical competence in the following areas: separation, filtration, fuel conditioning, heating and cooling, desalination, ballast water treatment, tank cleaning, inert gas generation, steam generation, waste heat recovery, oily waste reduction and exhaust gas cleaning. Within these areas, Alfa Laval focuses on product development not only on new solutions, but also on making proven solutions simpler, more reliable and more economical. In this way, Alfa Laval demonstrates ongoing application leadership. Likewise, Alfa Laval makes progress for the future, pioneering technologies that reflect the environmental focus and serve the industry’s changing business needs. With its global service business Alfa Laval Aalborg offers a plethora of services such as operator training, commissioning of equipment, inspections, condition reports, upgrade and overhauls, repair on-site and on its external brands. The company offers OEM spare parts for both own and external brands.
Business presence and service stations
Alfa Laval employs a total number of approx. 15,000 people (with approx. 4,000 in the Marine and Diesel Division), represented in 99 service centres worldwide. The company’s main engineering activities are in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. The major manufacturing sites are in China and Denmark. The company divides its parts and service business into three areas: service, repair and spare parts.
Business competitiveness
Alfa Laval operates against strong competition, but spare parts and service afford the company a strong position on the market. Alfa Laval has a large installed base of more than 35,000 marine boilers and heat recovery units and more than 50% of the world’s new-builds are provided Alfa Laval’s marine boilers. A large installed base, together with new environmental legislation, has had a large impact on the entire parts and service business, which in 2012 had a remarkable increase, despite the financial crisis. After the acquisition of Aalborg Industries, Alfa Laval’s products will reach a larger application area and larger customer base, which will generate an increase in both the new and after-sales markets.
Motivation to participate in PROTEUS
Alfa Laval’s motivation in PROTEUS is to gain inspiration regarding PSS experiences (from other companies) and methods (from the researchers), but also to share own knowledge between the PROTEUS companies. It also has a particular interest in carrying out an in-depth study of the internal competences within the company, in order to create a portfolio of new offerings for the company’s after-sales business.