Membrane Service Program Implementation in Europe

The GEA Filtration in Europe continues its expansion in organization and products and services. The membrane service product has undergone a thorough review and a three-fold program has been implemented.

Esben SØrensen

Esben Sørensen from the application centre in Skanderborg, Denmark, who is managing the GEA Filtration after-sales activity in Europe, explains: "GEA Filtration has now established a comprehensive membrane stock in Europe for emergency supply to our customers. Having membranes available at short notice is essential to all of our customers, in particular those key customers for whom we provide comprehensive service and maintenance programs. Our program is particularly aimed at the Dairy industry, but the other key industry segments of Pharma & Biotech, Food & Beverage Industry will also benefit from this unique GEA Filtration product."

The core elements of the membrane service program are:

• Membrane Replacement Plan

  Membrane supply and stocking

• Membrane Service Agreement

  Service and membrane replacement and stocking

• Membrane Maintenance Program Service

  maintenance and membrane rental program

Esben Sørensen explains the three program levels.

"The Membrane Replacement Plan is the simple supply of competitive membranes to provide the correct process performance and price levels, backed up with a stock availability."

"The Membrane Service Agreement is one level up from the basic membrane supply. This is a service program provided by competent GEA Filtration service engineers, performing audits and offering recommendations for the end user to get the best performance out of its membrane systems."

"The Membrane Maintenance Program is the most comprehensive service program provided by GEA Filtration," Esben Sørensen continues. "This program allows the customer to lease the membranes at a fixed monthly fee. GEA Filtration guarantees the membrane life and back-up supply. This program gives the customer a maximum operational safety and makes planning operating costs easy. GEA Filtration is offering this program to its key customers who have operating systems supplied from GEA Filtration, or systems that have been through a GEA Filtration Process Audit Scheme."

"The membrane service program implementation is a part of the increased customer service focus, which is one of the corner stones of the new GEA Filtration activity in Europe," said Niels E. Olsen, the European Division Manager. "We are committed to serve our customers and end users who are in need of professional membrane service and process expertise, whether they are operating on a system supplied by GEA or others. Our preferred membrane suppliers, being the world leaders, clearly appreciate our renewed strong market position, as our membrane expertise ensures the full benefit of their products with our end users. This is the role that the market is expecting from a leading global player like GEA Filtration, and we are meeting this demand. Likewise we are convinced that end users will continue supporting us as we provide unbiased support independent of any membrane manufacturer."

The two central GEA Filtration application centres located in Skanderborg, Denmark and Ettlingen, Germany provide the core elements of the membrane service program. This resource availability is extended by the local GEA Process Engineering organizations located in each local European country or region. Each of these local organizations has dedicated engineers with GEA Filtration knowledge and maintains close contact with the two application centres. Niels E. Olsen underlines: "This is GEA at its best, providing Leading Technologies - Individual Solutions."

GEA Filtration is a world leader in cross-flow membrane filtration, with reverse osmosis and nano-, ultra-, and micro-filtration as core technologies. GEA Filtration is part of the GEA group and has application centres in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and Denmark.