The South African subsidiary of German compressor manufacturer Aerzen Airgas in June launched a branch in KwaZulu-Natal, which has been growing the company’s market reach in the province and is already working on two major repair projects.

The company states that the branch manager of Aerzen’s KwaZulu-Natal branch is already on the road promoting the company’s work and seeking new customers in the province.

Aerzen Airgas supplies roots blowers, rotary screw compressors and rotary piston gas meters for air and process gases. It also offers services, repairs, overhauls and maintenance contracts on the entire range of Aerzener Maschinenfabrik blowers and compressors.

Aerzen Airgas assistant service manager Jochen Schmidt adds that the company also offers vibration analysis services. “We capture vibration readings used for condition monitoring to predict any possible failures of rotating elements, such as bearings,” he explains.

Schmidt says, following the success of the KwaZulu-Natal office, the company is now focused on opening another branch in the Western Cape in 2017, with plans expected to take shape next year.

He adds that the company’s value-added approach to services is the reason it is now expanding its Johannesburg office and looking at other areas in the country, such as KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
Schmidt believes fully operational satellite service stations will improve turnaround times for the servicing and repair of machinery, resulting in less downtime for Aerzen Airgas’s clients.

He also highlights the importance of regularly maintaining machinery and equipment for effective performance, which he believes can be achieved through effective communication between equipment manufacturers and their clients.

“If industry can plan ahead, it will simplify and speed up maintenance services and spares procurement during general maintenance periods,” he notes.

Meanwhile, Aerzen Airgas provides a training programme for clients’ technicians covering all aspects of the company’s service and maintenance procedures.

“We also have a pool of rental equipment to ensure that clients do not suffer unnecessary losses or delays while a machine is being repaired or overhauled,” states Schmidt.

Product Offering
Aerzen Airgas’s products include a selection of roots-type vacuum pumps for conveying air, and neutral and aggressive gases. The pumps are available in four different designs for various applications, with intake volume flows of up to 97 000 m³/h.
The company also offers the Aerzen HV series of vacuum pumps, used in the industrial vacuum technology sector, to coat glass and foil in the packaging industry, for example.

The HV series of vacuum pumps covers a total of 19 machine sizes with nominal intake volume flows that range from 180 m³/h to 97 000 m³/h.

The HV series uses pre-inlet cooling on the housing and is equipped with a third socket on the suction side, which cools air and lowers the discharge air temperature.

Aerzen Airgas also offers the Aerzen canned drive CM series vacuum blowers, which comes in 14 sizes, with intake volume flows from 105 m³/h to 15 330 m³/h.

“Owing to the CM series, which we believe is the largest canned motor and hermetic series of vacuum blowers, customers can select the optimal blower-motor type for their application.

“Aerzen Airgas also offers machines that are available for applications concerning nonaggressive gases in physical vapour-deposition applications and aggressive gases in chemical- vapour deposition applications, with different motor variants for operation in lock chambers or process chambers,” Schmidt notes.

The company also provides Aerzen blowers, which feature a high mechanical load capacity of up to 250 bar, based on which pumping downtime can be reduced considerably.

Further, the water cooling of the Aerzen blowers’ motor means that this product can be applied under clean room conditions. The blowers are internally tested and certified for ATEX Zone 0.

Schmidt highlights that, following the success of the CM series Aerzen canned drive blowers for aggressive gases in solar, flat panel and semiconductor applications, the company extended the range of products with the HM series for the application of neutral gases.