Sivakumar Jayapal

ZF is a global technology company supplying gear systems for vehicles and industrial technology. ZF Wind Power designs modular gearbox platforms and produces complete powertrains for wind turbines. Sivakumar Jayapal, Chief Service Officer at ZF Wind Power, talks with Windpower Engineering & Development about its new interactive service Thrive.

Below is an excerpt of ZF’s Wind Spotlight with Windpower Engineering & Development, but be sure to listen to the full episode here or on your favorite podcast app.

What is Thrive?

Thrive is ZF Wind Power’s new service brand, which we launched in 2022. As a global leader in the wind industry for the gearbox and powertrain, we aim to empower a sustainable future with our partners by our service offerings. Our unique service concept helps our wind park operators, consumers and customers to get the most from the wind power to generate limitless green energy. “Thrive” means to prosper, to be fortunate. We embody that definition to the power of our service. For us, service is not reactive, but rather being proactive. It is not only about maintaining and keeping the wind turbines alive, but about continuously optimizing to thrive and prosper.

What does Thrive’s tagline ‘For continuous availability’ mean?

With Thrive, we strive for continuous availability for our partners and their wind projects. Thanks to our customer-centric mindset, availability of the gearbox and the spare parts along with our global footprint, we can ensure the wind power continues to reach consumers 24/7 through the year.

How do you guarantee this availability?

Thrive offers a complete service package. We bundled everything together, including worldwide field support, workshop repairs in 90 days, global replacement pool, spare part management, and we also train our partners. All these are supported by our unique digitalization approach, a service powered by analytics. This includes different digital offerings like ZF’s customer dashboard, intelligent powertrain, spare part optimization. We also work as partners with our customers and tailor our offerings to their preference. That’s key because it’s not that they have to get the full package. There is no standard or a fixed approach. We always develop a personalized package together with our partners, which suits their business model, they have a choice to select in any six of our offerings.

What is the gearbox pool and how does it work?

Thrive offers an international pool for its partners. This gearbox pool contains new and refurbished gearboxes from all major brands and multiple turbine models. Using the digital Thrive platform, customers can go into zfthrive.com and order a gearbox of their choice, which will be shipped within five days. The gearbox pool provides many opportunities for our partners such as low personal stock, less downtime and replacement gearboxes when a gearbox needs service.

This podcast is sponsored by ZF Wind Power.

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Below is an excerpt of the MISTRAS Group’s Wind Spotlight with Windpower Engineering & Development, but be sure to listen to the full episode here or on your favorite podcast app.

Lately people have been talking and writing a lot about concepts like Digital Transformation, Big Data, Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Sensors, Digital Twins, etc. How are these themes related to each other and to the future of the wind industry?

Valery Godinez-Azcuaga

Let me take you back in time to about two and a half centuries ago, when the first industrial revolution happened, we all learn about this in school. It happened in England in the middle of the 18th century. What we’d never been taught in school is that about 100 years later, there was a second industrial revolution, and this was triggered by the availability of electric power.

Now we are in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution, in which new developments in the digital domain and the connectivity with the physical world through sensors allow us to harness the potential of digital physical interaction. And this is where all these concepts like Big Data, AI smart sensors, digital twins, are part of what is called the digital transformation, which is an intrinsic part of something that is called Industry 4.0, which is the big, big changing paradigm in this fourth industrial revolution.

There is also another concept starting to appear in conversations, Wind 4.0. What is it and what is its main goal?

It’s very interesting that this new concept of Industry 4.0 starts leaking into specific aspects in different markets. And in the case of our industry, the way people refer to the application of this new Industry 4.0 is “Wind 4.0.” And what is obvious is that Wind 4.0 includes all the aspects of wind energy generation and transmission, in all the components of a wind turbine. So, in a nutshell it’s the application of Industry 4.0 concepts to the wind industry. And what is very, very important is that Wind 4.0 has as an objective to really increase wind turbine reliability, and energy production.

How can we use data to optimize wind turbine O&M and increase uptime?

All this data will offer a continuous history of the wind turbine. If you combine it correctly, the data, for example, from inspections in the cementation of the blade, the tower, the nacelle, the drive train, bearings, the blades themselves. What you’re doing is you’re creating a digital copy of the blade, pretty much like digital copies that exist of you or me on the internet by looking at what type of movies we watch, what type of things we buy online — that’s our digital history.

Sometimes we hear the expression “data-rich but information-poor.” What does this mean, and what impact does it have in the Wind 4.0 paradigm?

When you talk to people, everybody talks about data. But you can be, drowning in data but you are starving for insights, right? All this data if it’s not correctly processed, if it doesn’t have information that can be taken to take action, it really doesn’t fulfill its purpose. You can collect a lot of data, you can sensor up a wind turbine, every single component, but unless you are able to take the data, process it and present it in a way that allows the operator or the owner of that turbine to take action, that data is useless. That is the challenge that we’re facing.

This podcast is sponsored by MISTRAS Group

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RAD Torque will be exhibiting at the international construction machinery trade show, bauma 2022 in Munich, Germany. The company encourages attendees to stop by RAD Torque’s booth to test out its range of tools.

Below is a written excerpt of this episode of Wind Spotlight, but be sure to listen to the entire episode here or on your favorite podcast app.

RAD Torque systems will soon be launching an exciting new tool called the B-RAD Xtreme. Tell me about it and why it’s going to revolutionize the torque wrench industry.

Well, the B-RAD Xtreme is going to launch with the highest torque output models available anywhere in the world. We’re launching with a 5,000, 8,000 and 11,000 ft lb models, making us the biggest battery tool available in any market.

The B-RAD X also includes a bunch of safety features that are new to our battery tooling. There’s a secondary trigger to prevent accidental operation or prevent any pinch points that may occur. We also are launching the tool with a bunch of ergonomic accessories. But most importantly is performance.

RAD Torque Systems is well known for its innovative gearbox. What makes the RAD gearbox unique?

We have 25 years of experience designing and manufacturing these gearboxes across five distinct generations of design. All that experience, all that knowledge has really put us in a position to bring that together and be able to provide the strongest, smallest gearboxes possible. That’s really where we take our pride in our tools, is being able to provide something that’s ergonomic, safe to use and isn’t as cumbersome as most of the solutions on the market right now.

The E-RAD Blu torque wrench is a preferred tool in the wind industry as well. Tell me about the E-RAD Blu and why so many wind turbine manufacturers and maintenance contractors make it their go-to tool.

It’s definitely two-fold. In manufacturing, the features that seem to be successful from the E-RAD are the data collection, process control integration with open protocol and other software that uses that technology. And it’s a bit of a workhorse. It’s an AC-powered tool, so you can plug it in and use it two shifts a day, every day. On the maintenance side, up a tower, the E-RAD provides a lot of benefits over some of our competition because the tool system is fairly lightweight. It’s easier to pack up a tower in order to do flange maintenance or generator maintenance or whatever needs to be done. And that’s proven to be very successful for us.

This podcast is sponsored by RAD Torque Systems

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