Passion. Purpose.
Passion. Purpose.
ROBUR
European investors give their money to big wind farms. To offer servicing and increased efficiency requires recruiting of skilled workers. Maintenance service provider ROBUR Wind builds an international safety net for investors.
In this interview Javier Amelivia, COO Europe, and David Corbett, President Americas, talk about the challenges and growth opportunities.
Timan Weber:
What is the goal of Robur’s international expansion especially if you look to the American markets?
David Corbett:
Many of our customers, perhaps even all of them, are international or have a global perspective and have operations that span multiple countries. It is very important for us to be able to support our customers wherever they are or need to go. So, we take the experience and expertise that we develop with them in their systems, with their technologies and deploy them in the countries where they are developing renewable energy projects. At the moment, we are focusing on both North America and LATAM. We recently opened operations in the United States, Chile, Peru, and Colombia. In total, we are operating in two North American countries and seven LATAM countries. We see this expansion continuing with the demand from our customers as they go to new countries and new locations. We operate throughout the life cycle of the system so it’s important for us to be there from the construction stage through into in-service operations and maintenance support with teams of very skilled and specialized technicians.
Timan Weber:
You mentioned “very skilled and specialized technicians. ”The challenge will be keeping a uniform quality [of service] over all these countries and markets that you are expanding into. How do you manage to go about this challenge?
David Corbett:
I think there are two or three main factors that we take into account when trying to achieve that outcome. The Robur Group globally is very focused on harmonized management systems. So, the group is certified to ISO9001 for quality management, ISO 14001 for quality and safety management, and ISO 45001 for environmental sustainability compliance. This weaves throughout everything that we do and the way that we manage the business internationally in every location. That being, compliance with international standards. This gives us a framework for the way that we need to operate and the way that our people need to deliver their services at site and to the customers. Equally important is the skills training for our technicians. Across the group, we are very focused on compliance with the Global Wind Organization Standards for both safety and service techniques. In fact, in Houston we’re just opening our GWO Training Center which will enable us to develop our own people not only with GWP compliant course material but also with apprenticeships and other training support. We also already have a GWO accredited training center in Mexico City that’s been operating for a long time. Through that center we not only train our own people but also our customers personnel as well. That investment in training capacity is important for us not as just a means of maintaining the ability to deliver our services in a consistent and reliable manner, but also as a contribution to the rest of the industry as well.
Full store here.
