Rolls-Royce Power Systems Division has announced that it has opened a new Remanufacturing and Overhaul Center on its mtu Aiken campus in South Carolina, US. The new facility is connected to the existing manufacturing operations and represents a low double-digit million dollar investment. It supports the company’s service initiative and sustainability approach.
This has a lot of importance for mining maintenance given the volume of high horsepower mtu engines running at minesites in North America, including trucks and excavators in key mining hubs like the Minnesota Iron Range, Arizona copper, Nevada gold and Wyoming coal industries that host numerous large open pit mining operations.
The new 69,000 sq ft. (6,400 m2) facility, which was announced in 2021, brings formerly outsourced workshop and warehouse operations in-house and expands them to provide remanufacturing and overhaul of mtu Series 2000, Series 4000 and Detroit Diesel 2-Cycle engines and components, plus internal and external rework services. Initially focused on parts remanufacturing for after sales support, the facility targets to remanufacture 20,000 parts per year once fully operational, thus greatly improving spare part availability and customer support in the region.
Dr Joerg Stratmann, CEO, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, said: “We have more than 150,000 engines in the field and our service business is growing. Service is not just maintenance and repair, but also upgrades, remanufacturing and digital services for predictive maintenance. Our customers trust us, and we want to fulfil this trust throughout the product lifecycle and into the next. To achieve this, excellent service is essential – and our Remanufacturing and Overhaul Center in Aiken will be a main pillar for serving our customers in the Americas.”
Remanufacturing the company says offers a wise lifecycle investment for customers, returning equipment to like-new condition and resulting in lower acquisition, maintenance, and operation costs. “It is also a smart choice for sustainability; reusing existing equipment and components to save on raw materials and energy consumption compared to new engine manufacturing. It creates a circular economy, where instead of disposing of an engine or component at the end of its useful life, they are overhauled giving them a second or even third life.”
Stratmann continued: “Remanufacturing is yet another part of our energy transition and sustainability story. With engines approved to run on sustainable fuels, we are significantly reducing emissions, and with remanufacturing we can get a second, third or even fourth lifetime from basically the same raw materials. It’s a total story of emissions and consumption reduction.”
The new Remanufacturing and Overhaul Center in Aiken will follow proven processes and procedures already established in global plant locations such as the facility in Magdeburg, Germany. This very thorough process ensures used engines and assemblies are fully disassembled, cleaned, and inspected, and then reworked and reassembled using new or remanufactured parts to replace any outdated, worn, or damaged components.
Since its opening in the fall of 2010, the mtu Aiken campus has been the site of continuous innovation, investment, and expansion. What began with the production of mtu Series 2000 and Series 4000 engines, has grown to include the assembly of military engines, the machining of parts and even the production of energy through its solar field and microgrid. With an onsite Research and Development Center and now a new Remanufacturing and Overhaul Center, the mtu Aiken campus covers the full circle of life for an mtu engine – from concept to second life (ie overhaul).