Once the upgrade is complete the centre will be able to carry out major machinery rebuilds and repairs to full original as-new condition.

The company has also launched Eclipse, which it claims is a world-first environmentally friendly, fluorine-free fire suppression foam for mobile equipment. The foam, developed and produced in Australia, is said to be biodegradable.

The Mackay centre will join the recently opened Orange productivity centre in New South Wales’ Central West and the productivity centres in the NSW Hunter region and Perth, Western Australia.

The Mackay centre will incorporate a modern, high-tech repair and rebuild facility including a paint booth and a large warehouse operation.

Sandvik north area service manager Tony McDonald said the facility and its processes had been upgraded, streamlined and improved to help it better serve the needs of mines in the region and enhance safety performance.

He said the centre would also service equipment for customers outside central Queensland.

“Our Mackay productivity centre – as one of four of these centres nationally – sets new standards for safety and environmental performance, service efficiency and turnaround times for our central Queensland customers,” McDonald said.

“The Sandvik productivity centre concept has been designed with one purpose: to align with our customers’ goals and boost their productivity.

“Sandvik’s service benchmarks are to ensure that our customers’ equipment remains safe and fully productive 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year – and to achieve that nearly 75% of our staff worldwide are dedicated to customer support.

“We are now bringing our aftermarket business the management techniques and methodologies that have enabled 70-80% productivity gains in our manufacturing operations around the world.

“Sandvik’s vision is that the offering that we have in aftermarket will be very different in a couple of years as we go through this transition.”

McDonald said the company was looking to drive out waste all through the aftermarket process and reduce the amount of time a piece of equipment was in the workshop.

“We recognise that the longer a customer’s asset sits in a supplier’s premises, the longer they don’t have access to it,” he said.

“Our ambition is to reduce this to a minimum and to set a new standard in aftermarket service and efficiency.

“Our ability to refurbish and rebuild existing equipment with several thousand hours on the clock back to full as-new condition, at substantially less than the cost of new equipment, allows Sandvik to play an important role in reducing owning and operating costs, while maintaining productivity levels.”

In addition to its service and support capabilities, Sandvik’s Mackay productivity centre will service as its regional warehouse for the central Queensland region.

Complementing its Mackay productivity centre, Sandvik also operates a number of dedicated field support centres throughout central and north Queensland. These are located in Emerald, Townsville and Mt Isa.

The central and north Queensland area is also supported by a fleet of mobile service vehicles crewed by trained field service teams.

“Our field service technicians can also carry out machine inspections, advise on operational and maintenance practices and assist customer technicians,” McDonald said.

On the firefighting front, Sandvik’s Eclipse fluorine-free fire suppressant foam can be used in all new and existing Sandvik-compliant fire suppression systems.

It fully complies with the environmental regulations being proposed in Queensland and WA, which will impact on fluorine-based foams.

Sandvik fire suppression sales manager Michael Sargaison said the system complied with AS5062 2006: Fire protection for mobile and transportable equipment.

He said the Eclipse foam biodegraded – unlike fluorine-based foams that, untreated, persisted as a hazardous substance in the environment, potentially for thousands of years.

“Because of the environmental impacts of fluorine-based foams, Queensland and WA are proposing new regulations imposing strict new requirements on the use of these foams,” Sargaison said.

“In contrast, Sandvik’s Eclipse fully biodegrades with none of the regulatory restrictions now being proposed on fluorine-based foams.

“In addition to its environmental benefits, Eclipse is superior to fluorine-based foams in that it delivers faster knock-down while still maintaining post-fire protection – making it more efficient at putting out mobile equipment fires.”

Sargaison said Eclipse cost about the same as fluorine-based foams so there would be negligible cost impact for customers.

There is also a cost saving should the system ever be discharged because there is not the same costly clean-up required as with fluorine-based foams.