For the past three years, MAN Rollo has been responsible for maintaining and overhauling energy company Vattenfall’s natural gas engines.

Vattenfall contacted Pon because it was looking for a new supplier for the maintenance and repair of its gas engines. ‘Pon then passed on the order to its subsidiary MAN Rollo,’ explains Henk Boeve, Technical Manager at Vattenfall.

‘Contractually, we have no direct contact with MAN Rollo, but do have operational contact. In fact, MAN Rollo’s operational activities are directly controlled by us, so in that way we are in contact with their service mechanics. And we’re very happy with the quality of their work and their specialist knowledge. They’re in contact not just with us but also directly with our customers. We always receive positive feedback from our customers about the MAN Rollo mechanics, even from our most critical customers. MAN Rollo carries out regular servicing and major maintenance. The maintenance – and that includes both preventive and corrective maintenance −is mainly carried out on location. Sometimes the engines are dismantled and transported to Zoetermeer. This depends on the type of work to be done and, of course, on the costs.’

‘Most of the work involves gas engines for district heating, but also engines for industrial applications such as process heat – such as in Amsterdam. One of the most recent projects was the overhaul of the gas engines for the district heating in the city of Lelystad. The MAN Rollo mechanics dismantled and transported the engines to Zoetermeer, where the engines were assembled into a single installation.’

Not just MAN engines
‘Besides MAN engines, we also use other engine brands, such as Jenbacher and Waukesha. That’s one of the reasons why we decided to work with MAN Rollo. Pon is only allowed to service Caterpillar and MWM engines, but MAN Rollo also specialises in the maintenance and repairs of brands other than MAN. This is one of the main reasons why we chose to work with MAN Rollo, plus the fact that their service mechanics are real all-rounders.’

Points for improvement
‘Of course, you can always find things that can be improved if you look hard enough. One of the obvious things I could mention is the fact that MAN Rollo is a smaller organisation than Pon. That means, for example, that the turnaround times, such as those for the complete control technology for the systems, are sometimes longer. We do take this into account in our planning, but it would be great if MAN Rollo could improve in this area. Another drawback with a smaller organisation is that it takes a little more time and effort for MAN Rollo to implement the stricter safety guidelines of the utility companies. But this takes nothing away from MAN Rollo’s quality and specialist knowledge.’