Liebherr-Australia has recently increased the numbers of their national Technical Support group, strengthening the function within the mining division across the country.

The new roles, now a team of 11 spread across the four mining branches Australia-wide, provide technical advice to customers ensuring support for over 300 pieces of Liebherr mining equipment currently operating in mines around Australia.

Working mostly with Liebherr's customer support representatives and managers that directly service customers at mine sites, the Technical Support group are the link between the customer and the technical engineering departments that reside at each of the company's factories across France, the USA and Austria.

Issues that are raised from the site to the customer support team can usually be solved locally within Liebherr-Australia's technical support group using their combined 120+ years of experience with Liebherr products.

The group also have direct lines to the manufacturing plant engineering and technical teams for overnight feedback when necessary.

National Technical Support manager David Power commented that this direct line to the factories was vitally important for customers, and also to the OEM who uses the feedback for further product development.

"Productivity is key for all of our customers, so ensuring we can get accurate information back to them, either through our highly experienced team here in Australia, or overnight from our factory colleagues, is a great advantage," commented Power.

He added, "We are also part of the product development working groups, to ensure that the information from all locally provided solutions is fed into the next development or upgrade of components and equipment."

Each member of the Technical Support group in Australia has two parts to their role: local support for the region they reside in, and a speciality area.

Among the recent changes to the team is a dedicated function to focus on condition analysis and root cause analysis of components.

John Vance, based in Liebherr-Australia's Adelaide Head Office will lend his experience of 14 years working with Liebherr-Australia, starting on the tools as field serviceman, to this new role which he explained.

"The ultimate aim is to find resolutions to the recurring and emerging problems we see through precise root cause analysis of components, as well as looking for the permanent solutions to these problems."

Vance has complete access to the relevant colleagues in all departments at Liebherr's mining equipment factories and affiliates, as well as directly working with customers to provide dynamic solutions for their equipment.

"In due course the findings from this role will benefit customers through growth in component lifetimes, which will produce increases in machine reliability," Vance continued.

As experts in their field, the Technical Support group are also considered as mentors to their colleagues within the company.

Tony Di Prima, a Queensland-based Technical Support Advisor spoke about his collaboration with colleagues regarding his product speciality, Liebherr's PR 776, the 70 tonne mining dozer.

"I provide technical support and advice to the customer support representatives, managers and fitters onsite, and recently have guided and worked closely with the tradespeople and apprentices who are completing the services and modifications on the PR 776 dozers."

"While the role allows me to be independent in decision making, I also have the ability to lean on others within the Technical Support group, as well as act as a mentor to the tradespeople and apprentices within the company," said Di Prima.

Power is looking forward to seeing the positive changes in the coming months with the updates to the team.

"We've always achieved consistent success with this group, but I'm looking forward to seeing particularly how these new roles will positively impact us here in Australia, along with our factories and, of course, our customers."