The job required us to step in when one of the onsite Fillers main bearing seized. The Arla Engineers needed to act quickly to get the unit back up and working, maintaining the production in the factory. Our regular lifting company were unable to respond in time. With current workload this situation was untenable. We contacted other Arla sites to see if they could help. Arla we were able to act quickly although this was for something that was outside of our normal service offering.
By Thursday night after the early morning breakdown a few days before, the filler was back up and running, and the team at Thermalair were extremely proud of the hard work they had put in to help the engineering team.
The fast response was recognised by all, and the picture and following quote is an extract from the Arla internal newsletter…
“This week we suffered a significant unplanned breakdown on Filler 3 when the main bearing seized at 01:30 on Tuesday morning. I would like to personally commend and thank the engineering team for their response to this issue.
On Tuesday morning we contacted our regular lifting company to help lift the filler to access the bearing. The response from them was that they could only help us in “2 weeks at the earliest”!! due to their current workload. However, the engineering team contacted other Arla sites (who couldn’t assist), only to finally arrange some lifting support on Tuesday evening from another Contractor, Thermalair that we use on site with our refrigeration systems. Various members of the engineering team then re arranged their personal commitments to return to site through that night to ensure the bearing was replaced and the filler was back up and running by 9pm Thursday night. It is only appropriate that this week winners of the Our Character award are the Engineering Team for their efforts. Apologies to those key members who supported the work on Filler 3 but were not present for the photo and we will be thanking Thermalair for their support as well.”
The following was an email from the Site Director…
“Good Evening Phil and Dave – I would just like to take this opportunity to echo Nick’s sentiments in the email below. It was clear that we were in an uncomfortable situation this week where without your support we could have simply been unable to supply our customers with finished products. However, it is fair to say that you came to our rescue on this occasion.
Please accept my sincere gratitude on behalf of the dairy and the business for your undoubted support this week , which it is fair to say was above and beyond what is normally provided by our normal Contractors/Suppliers.
Please ensure that next time you are on site that you pop by so I can put a face to your names and thank you in person.”
As Nick says a “Big thanks from the team”.
The following is an email from the Engineering Manager…
“Gent’s, just a quick note of thanks for your support for site with our breakdown on Filler 3. This again firms up our current working relationship and can only enhance our future working relationship. As you will see from the attachments myself and Richard have made sure your company has been mentioned – this will also be shown to our vice president on Monday.
Important thing for me is that Dave not only sourced the lifting company but also came in to help through the night.
It’s fair to say that many – even if they should be involved would take a step back which can occasionally make my job a lonely place to be, so for Dave to step forward when he needn’t even get involved was more than we could have expected.”
So again “a big thanks” from the team here.