http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/RSS.ashxVestas Win[d] PagesThu, 06 Nov 2008 09:22:57 +0100http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=1http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=1Win[d] W I N D , O I L A N D G A S No. 14 Ye a r 0 5 6 November 2008 Turbines with less downtime Texas oil billionaire boosts US wind Forecasts for better service A company icon · Expansion in the USA Controlling quality · Latin America opens for business2008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=2http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=2Wind is powerful – even in troubled times The extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) scheme to the end of 2009 has brought clarity to the United States – in the short term, at least. However, the USA needs a long-term energy plan if the country is to capitalise on its enormous wind power potential. The associated investment, which will create thousands of “green collar” jobs for many years to come, is a convincing argument in favour of wind power today, as many economies are gearing down and unemployment is on the rise. At Pickensplan.com, T. Boone Pickens promotes wind power, highlighting the opportunity to save part of the USD 700 billion a year that the USA spends on foreign oil. If the USA joins the UN climate agreement, which will be signed in Copenhagen at the end of next year, the EU will increase its goal for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 20 to 30 per cent compared to 1990. Even though more than 30 American states now have their own targets for sustainable energy, Vestas will continue to apply pressure – not just in Washington, but also in Brussels, Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Berlin and other centres of influence. We are doing this to ensure that ambitious promises are backed by active measures, such as efficient administration of turbine sites, and investment in modern electricity grids with the capacity to switch from one form of energy to another, and to carry wind-generated power from remote sites to urban areas. Ditlev Engel, President and CEO Vestas Wind Systems A/S This is already happening in some places, and modern energy is spreading to new markets. Credit crunch or not, basic energy supplies must expand constantly, and wind power now competes directly with oil, gas and coal. The precondition for wind power to become a mainstream source of energy on a par with oil and gas is our ability to bring quality under control. Turbine downtime has to be reduced, and we are making great progress in this area, thanks to central monitoring of more than half of Vestas’ installed generating capacity. By the end of this year we will have doubled the number of days between the visits our service technicians make to individual turbines. Higher uptime minimises our customers’ income loss from turbine stoppages, and allows our service technicians to cover more turbines. 2009 will be the 30th anniversary of Vestas’ first wind turbine sale. Vestas has operated outside Denmark almost from day one, and today we have production facilities in ten countries on three continents. An unbreakable will to keep going and aim ever higher, through constant change and realignment, is the driving force behind Vestas. No-one has experienced this more vividly than Hans Laurids Pedersen, who has been with the team every step of the way. Read his story on page 22 of this issue. 22008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=3http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=3Content 4 The Pickens Plan A Texas oilman shows America how wind can help reduce foreign oil imports and save the economy. 28 Expansion in the United States despite political challenges With one factory in operation and three more on the way, Vestas believes in the American market – despite the lack of a long-term political framework for new wind energy. 10 More loyalty takes much more forecasting Vestas is going all out to improve poor customer loyalty scores on service. Initiatives to forecast turbine needs in good time will improve reliability and availability. 34 A fresh look at quality Suppliers and employees at every level are learning the culture of quality control. 16 Busier turbines, better productivity Improved planning, idea-sharing and the principle of the pitstop are reducing turbine downtime. 40 Airborne in Latin America Governments all over Latin America are setting targets for wind power. 22 A symbol of continuity After 40 years with Vestas, Hans Laurids Pedersen exemplifies an enduring spirit that has helped the company rise to every challenge. 46 New in brief Vestas opens new offices in Århus and Rome, and sets up a new local sales unit for the Iberian peninsula. 32008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=4http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=4The Pickens Plan 42008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=5http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=5A Texas oil billionaire has boosted wind unexpectedly. T. Boone Pickens thinks wind can help reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. To him, wind is simply a smart investment. Suddenly 20 per cent wind in the US looks like a floor to future growth – not a ceiling. 52008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=6http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=6“I’ve been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of.” T. Boone Pickens. T. Boone Pickens has a plan for America – a plan that envisions lots of wind. People take notice, because Pickens does not come from the usual circles that want more wind energy. Pickens is a Texas oil man. He is 80 years old and worth $4 billion. He has started work on a 4,000 MW wind farm in Texas – the world’s largest – which he is paying for himself. Most recently he spent $58 million for a marketing campaign he hopes will get people to notice his ideas. In one TV advertisement, he shows how the United States spends 700 billion dollars a year on oil imports. Then he mentions his plan to help cut some of that foreign oil dependency. That plan involves wind power and natural gas. “I’ve been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of,” he says. The plan The Pickens Plan has two main elements: using domestic natural gas to fuel automobiles instead of power plants, and then replacing natural gas’s 22 per cent share of US electrical generation with wind. These two actions will reduce US dependence on foreign oil by more than one-third, he says. First, natural gas is sold at a quarter of the price of gasoline or diesel at some of its few automobile fueling stations in America. Natural gas is also the cleanest transportation fuel available today, and 98 per cent of the natural gas used in the US is from North America. While few commercial natural gas vehicles are in production, T. Boone Pickens sees a huge potential for them. Once natural gas is used for vehicles, wind can take its place in the power generation source mix. T. Boone Pickens takes inspiration from a new report from the US Department of Energy (DOE), 20% Wind Energy by 2030. That details how 300 GW of wind generation will power 20 per cent of America’s power needs by 2030, up from 1 per cent today. In the Pickens Plan, T. Boone Pickens says the wind resources in the Midwest alone can supply 20 per cent of the nation’s power. He estimates it to cost $1 trillion to develop that generation, with another $200 billion for transmission capacity. “That’s a lot of money,” T. Boone Pickens says, “but it’s a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it’s a bargain.” 62008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=7http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=7Strong reception The visibility of T. Boone Pickens and his plan has been unprecedented, says Chris Flavin, President of the Worldwatch Institute, an inde- pendent environmental research organization based in Washington D.C. “It’s huge. It’s all over the place,” says Chris Flavin. “He puts things in very simple terms and I think almost anybody who’s a serious follower of national and world events is going to be aware at least in vaguest sense of T. Boone Pickens and what he’s proposing.” 72008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=8http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=8“Sure, I’d like to make a profit on the wind farm, but do you really think I’m doing this because I need more money?” T. Boone Pickens. Offbeat approach to wind T. Boone Pickens’ oil background is one of the reasons he has had such an impact, Chris Flavin says. “You have somebody who has spent his whole career in the oil industry embracing wind in a very assertive way. He’s not saying wind is just a nice marginal thing. He’s saying, ‘We’ve got the potential to use wind to supply a large fraction of our country’s electricity.’ That’s not a new perspective, but a very tiny number of people think that way. Even the environmental community does not show the real appreciation for what wind can do.” T. Boone Pickens uses not only traditional advertising to promote his message. His website contains social networking and multimedia tools – like Facebook, YouTube and a daily blog feed – as well as invitations to the public for local meetings around America to talk about his plan. “He’s actually trying to reach out to the public,” says Bonnie Ram, an energy consultant who works frequently with the Department of Energy and was a co-manager of the “20% Wind Energy by 2030” report. “I give him credit for that. He’s planting the seeds of change.” Bonnie Ram says that T. Boone Pickens’ approach to wind is so unexpected that people take more notice. Never before has somebody promoted wind power so strongly without mentioning the environment or the climate. “He never mentions climate change. It’s a whole different push for why to do renewables,” Bonnie Ram says. “That’s quite amazing. But to me, that’s good. He’s advocating wind and linking it to foreign oil. Now people are even talking about 20 per cent wind as a floor, not a ceiling.” Key financial message Some media coverage has focused on T. Boone Pickens’ own financial interests in the plan. He is one of the country’s biggest investors in wind generation, according to the New York Times. He is founder and chairman of BP Capital, an energy-focused investment fund, as well as the majority shareholder in Clean Energy Fuels, a company that supplies fuel for natural gas vehicles. At one of his first local community meetings in Pampa, Texas, in May, he told a crowd that he had spent $150 million as a down payment to buy his first 667 wind turbines, according to Texas Monthly. He openly admitted that none of the wind turbines would be placed on his nearby ranch, “because I think they’re ugly as hell. But any of you who wants to put one on your ranch will get about ten to twenty thousand dollars a year in royalties from us. Pampa is on its way to becoming the wind capital of the world!” When openly criticized for his conflict of interest, T. Boone Pickens told a reporter: “Sure, I’d like to make a profit on the wind farm, but do you really think I’m doing this because I need more money? In the next ten years, this country is going to need a fifteen percent increase in the amount of energy that we use now, and do we really want it to come from foreign oil? Do we really want to just sit here and keep doing nothing? I want people to look at me and say, ‘That old fart, he’s eighty years old, he’s out there still plugging, putting those wind turbines up at his age, and if he can do it, I can do it too.’” The financial message from T. Boone Pickens is key, says Christian Kjær, Chief Executive Officer of the European Wind Energy Association. “He believes wind energy is the best 82008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=9http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=9For more information on the Pickens Plan, see: www.pickensplan.com T. Boone Pickens’ own website, with some excerpts from his new book, “The First Billion is the Hardest”: www.boonepickens.com The US Department of Energy 20% wind study: www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro investment in a world where we are increasingly importing a larger share of our energy from foreign countries and where fuel prices are very high. He believes that he can produce the cheapest kilowatt-hour from wind energy.” “It’s good to have that message,” Christian Kjær adds. “Many places in the world still see wind energy as a nice little technology which will never meet a substantial amount of our electricity needs. Of course, when a big country like Germany starts getting seven to eight percent of its electricity from wind – and this is not a very windy country by the way – it already proves otherwise.” Christian Kjær says that T. Boone Pickens brings an important focus to what’s needed to make 20 per cent wind possible. “It’s going to take an enormous amount of investment. And unless we get people with the money and risk capacity to invest in this technology, it’s not going to happen,” he says. Chris Flavin says that T. Boone Pickens has been helpful in spurring a growing bandwagon of people to invest big in wind and other renewable technologies. While his plan may lack details, it has power. Chris Flavin says, “I think ten years from now if we look back to when the energy market changed, I think we’ll conclude that Pickens was one of the turning points.” Read a long interview and background piece about T. Boone Pickens in Texas Monthly at: www.texasmonthly.com/2008-09-01/feature.php and www.20percentwind.org 92008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=10http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=10More loyalty takes much more forecasting Broad performance-related initiatives are strengthening Vestas on the wind turbine service market. The aim: to set new standards and improve customer loyalty. Vestas’ overall service performance remains very much in the “could do better” category according to customers who participated in this year’s customer loyalty survey. While customers generally praise the work of service technicians in the field, service contracts and reporting, for example, are the subject of particular criticism. But, by the end of 2008, customers should start to feel the impact of major improvement initiatives. Because Vestas is shaping up to meet the expectations of the customers and set the standards for the industry – and, also within service support, aim for recognition as No.1 in Modern Energy. An urgent mission The launch of 12 Must-Win-Battles in January has created a sense of urgency regarding the need to raise the standard of turbine service. Of the 12, Must-Win-Battle no. 8 – Service Excellence – and Must-Win-Battle no. 9, which focuses on increasing Mean Time Between 102008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=11http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=11112008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=12http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=12Inspections (MTBI), are critical to meeting customers’ service expectations. Just as business forecasts provide the basis for Vestas’ service strategy, the ability to forecast turbine needs in the field is essential to securing what every customer has a right to expect: maximum turbine reliability and availability. Russ Young, Vice President of Per- formance and Diagnostics, is manager of MustWin-Battle no. 9, where the focus on MTBI has made forecasting part of the work culture. “The goal is to reduce lost megawatt hours by not wasting turbine time when it could be generating electricity,” he says. “To do that we have to be a lot better at forecasting spare part needs and failures.” “By forecasting well, we know what’s going to happen. This enables us to have spare parts ready when the customer needs them, so turbines are not down in the meantime. Our improved understanding of remaining useful life enables us to carry out a necessary overhaul when there is no wind.” 122008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=13http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=13megawatts. Analyses of turbine performance data are having a direct impact on MTBI. “Right now we have exceeded our thirdquarter target,” Russ Young reports. “Our year-end goal is to double the MTBI compared to the beginning of the year.” cies, service teams are now ahead of the game. More of the inspections are scheduled, and the exact status of each monitored turbine is, today, fully documented beforehand. That means breakdowns are becoming fewer. Faster overhauls Preventative maintenance Russ Young’s role as Manager of Must-WinBattle no. 9 has brought him into closer dialogue with John Nielsen, Vice President of Service Excellence responsible for Must-WinBattle no. 8. Within the service organisation, scheduled turbine services are now being based on the forecasts’ overview of maintenance requirements, including detected defects that have yet to develop into failures. “From Performance and Diagnostics, we now know which problems we need to solve when we visit the turbines, so we can make sure we have the right parts, tools and Impact on MTBI Turbine forecasts are produced by the Vestas Performance and Diagnostics Centre. Equipped with diagnostic tools capable of measuring more than 135 aspects of turbine performance every 10 minutes, the centre today monitors over 16,500 MW of wind generating power – 55% of Vestas’ global installed documentation to do the overhaul or repair. By preventative maintenance, we can get to grips with a defect before it causes a breakdown,” John Nielsen says. This sharpened focus on preventative maintenance is making all the difference to customer experiences of Vestas service. Instead of having to rush out to unforeseen emergen- Another aim is to improve turbine availability by cutting the twice-yearly general turbine overhauls from four days to one. At the same time, further improvement initiatives are tackling other targets of customer criticism – service contracts, service reports and spare part delivery times. The introduction of new contract templates, based on five global service bundles, provides greater transparency for the customer and meets demands from customers who operate across borders and regions. Come the end of the year, revised service processes will be in place, and roles within the service organisation will have been redefined. SAP toolbox John Nielsen is particularly positive about the impending integration of all service data in a SAP enterprise resource planning system. “SAP will provide us with a toolbox for all transactions. In the system, it will be possible to see and make task lists and, thanks to fore- 132008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=14http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=14casts, identify which spare parts are necessary for each turbine,” he says. “SAP will give us transparency when conducting periodic maintenance, remote diagnostics and lean planning and when reporting back to customers.” To improve the information flow to customers, a customer portal is planned for launch on the Vestas website. Here customers will have access to all service reports, documentation and operational data for their turbines. Global spare parts supply That leaves the issue of spare part availability. And this, too, is an area where customers can look forward to significant improvements following a decision to gather the entire Vestas supply chain in a new business unit: Vestas Spare Parts. The business unit will have overall responsibility for spare parts, from their production at the supplier to their delivery at the turbine site. Eventually, preventive maintenance and forecasts and planning will ensure that spare parts are always available for planned inspections. Should an unforeseen event arise, customers will also be able to expect delivery of standard spare parts within 24 hours and main components within three days. “This is the delivery reliability and availability customers demand,” John Nielsen adds. Together, the two Must-Win-Battles are manoeuvring Vestas into a win-win position – where higher turbine yield brings customers the benefit of lower costs per kilowatt hour produced, and where Vestas is a much stronger competitor on the promising turbine service market. 142008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=15http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=15“By forecasting well, we know what’s going to happen. This enables us to have spare parts ready when the customer needs them, so turbines are not down in the meantime.” Russ Young, Vice President of Performance and Diagnostics, Vestas Technology R&D. 152008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=16http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=16162008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=17http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=17Busier turbines, better productivity Vestas Mediterranean takes the lead in a company-wide effort to minimise the downtime of its turbines When Fernando Valldeperes and Michael Saxtoft took on the job of redesigning the service operations at Vestas Mediterranean in November 2007 the average number of days between inspection visits to the turbines in their unit was about half of the company’s year-end goal. Seven months later, on 24 July 2008, the Mean Time Between Inspections (MTBI) at Vestas Mediterranean was just four percent shy of the goal for the entire year. And by 1 August, the MTBI at Vestas Mediterranean had exceeded the goal by ten percent. 172008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=18http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=18Avoiding downtime Customers may well ask why the company should want to visit its turbines less often – especially since it is Vestas’ job to make sure the turbines in its care are properly serviced at all times. And of course, the company has absolutely no intention of relaxing the standard of maintenance for its products. The idea behind the MTBI effort is to maintain the company’s high service standards while reducing the downtime of each turbine. Top-notch maintenance combined with a more efficiently planned downtime means the turbines will spend less time standing idly in the wind and more time doing what they were designed to do: generating electricity and income for their owners. This effort is so important to Vestas that it has become one of the company’s 12 MustWin-Battles. A new philosophy Doing more with less sounds a bit like having your cake and eating it, too. But a number of new strategies are now being implemented that are enabling the company to work some wonders. Vestas Mediterranean began with the establishment of an MTBI Team whose sole purpose was to make the service operations more effective. For the Mediterranean team, the goal was more than just a company KPI. “We prefer to see MTBI as a philosophy by which we service our turbines and drive organizational behaviour,” Fernando Valldeperes says. This philosophy is based on a series of principles that in many cases represents a break with established tradition. One of the key ideas is to ‘bundle’ every task – meaning that whenever a turbine is stopped, more than one job can be performed. For example, technicians on a trouble-shooting assignment might also perform routine maintenance work, upload some new software and do a safety check. Michael Saxtoft likes to compare the idea of bundling to a Formula One pit stop. When a racing car zooms into the pit, it is immediately surrounded by a service team that changes tires, refuels, does repairs and makes mechaniPlanners and ‘milkmen’ One thing the MTBI team quickly discovered was that better monitoring of the turbine cal adjustments all at the same time. Potential problems are caught before they become serious, and the car can return to the race as soon as humanly possible. 182008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=19http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=19‘health’ could save a lot of downtime. Newlyappointed planners at each site took on this task, and today they regularly check every turbine for potential problems via the Vestas Turbine Monitoring System. If a planner finds, say, a bearing that is running a little hot, he can bundle the job of greasing it together with the next routine servicing of the turbine in question. That way, two jobs are taken care of in a single ‘pit stop’ – and a potential emergency repair (with extra downtime) is avoided. “With more than 4500 turbines under service and more than 600 technicians, planning becomes an essential task. It’s about looking ahead and doing something about what you see,” Michael Saxtoft says. “You might compare it to having a regular medical checkup, instead of waiting until you get a heart attack.” The planners at the Vestas Mediterranean sites also have what is fondly called a ‘milkman’ function. Once they have drawn up a detailed plan that bundles as many tasks as possible for 192008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=20http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=20Top-notch maintenance combined with a more efficiently planned downtime means the turbines will spend more time doing what they were designed to do: generating electricity and income for their owners. each turbine, they assemble a box filled with all the necessary tools and spare parts. This box is delivered to the turbine, where technicians will find it waiting when they arrive. And when they are finished working, the ‘milkman’ collects any waste and disposes of it. Sharing ideas Finding common goals and methods to increase MTBI has created what Vestas Mediterranean President Juan Araluce calls a “cultural change” in his organisation. “For the first time, all countries have worked as a single team instead of simply following their own ideas. I believe this change has been one of the most difficult things for us to achieve,” he says. Conference calls for best practice sharing across borders and even business units have definitely helped raise the MTBI – not only at Vestas Mediterranean but also in Vestas Central Europe, where the MTBI responsible is Olaf Kleesch, manager of technical support and education. During the first ten weeks of its MTBI project, which began in May, the Vestas Central Europe organisation almost doubled its MTBI, Olaf Kleesch reports. A key to this success was a monthly conference call, established by Vestas Mediterranean and open to all sales and service business units. Vestas Central Europe became an enthusiastic participant, and by sharing their best ideas, the MTBI of both Vestas Mediterranean and Vestas Central Europe received a boost. “We are now 100 percent prepared when we arrive at the turbine,” Olaf Kleesch says. “There are no missing materials, no time wasted in searching for parts or driving back to get some forgotten item.” No magic trick Michael Saxtoft and Olaf Kleesch agree that it would be impossible to achieve any meaningful MTBI results without the acceptance and trust of the technicians who are doing the actual work. “MTBI results are created at our sites, not in an office. There is no magic trick that will bring the MTBI forward in quantum leaps. You have to pay attention to the details and exercise leadership at the right levels,” says Michael Saxtoft, who has made a point of visiting sites and understanding as much of the technicians’ job as possible while initiating the MTBI changes. At Vestas Central Europe, Olaf Kleesch made sure every one of the 800 technicians in Vestas Central Europe was on board and supporting the project by arranging a series of road show events in connection with the MTBI launch. Meanwhile, Vestas Central Europe President Hans Jørn Rieks has helped prepare customers for the changes that are happening, showing them the figures and documentation to prove that turbine productivity is on the rise. “The customers themselves can help increase MTBI by planning their own turbine inspections to coincide with the Vestas visits,” he adds. The battle continues Among the six sales and service business units at Vestas, Vestas Mediterranean now has a comfortable position as leader of the MTBI battle. But the MTBI team has no intention of resting on its laurels. “Our analysis shows that it is possible to raise our MTBI by another 20 per cent or so by the end of the year,” Michael Saxtoft says, pointing to the fact that Italy and France already have MTBIs that exceed even this expectation. “But this will require successes on several different fronts.” 202008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=21http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=21A new way of working Things were done differently when Christophe Godais joined the Vestas organisation at Beauce, France, back in September, 2006. While working as a technician on a routine turbine service job, for example, he would sometimes be told to drop what he was doing and go off on a trouble-shooting assignment somewhere else. Getting a failed turbine up and running again was, of course, a top priority. Olaf Kleesch is confident that the MTBI for Vestas Central Europe will be at or above the company-wide goal at year’s end. But that will not mean that the project is finished, he says: “This is not a project, this is change management. We are changing our organisational structures to raise our MTBI, and there is no time limit on that process.” But it also meant spending a lot of extra time doing non-technical things like driving back and forth between turbines or going back to the warehouse to get a part he needed for the emergency repair. Meanwhile, the other turbine – the one Christophe Godais had originally been working on – remained still as a statue instead of generating electricity for the customer. As a former airplane mechanic in the French army, Christophe knew from experience that things didn’t have to be like that. With a little planning, the army maintenance staff could usually combine service and trouble-shooting in a single operation. “We would always try to optimise each stop of the airplane,” he recalls. And so it came as no surprise to Christophe Godais when Vestas initiated Must-Win-Battle no. 9 – increasing the Mean Time Between Inspections (MTBI). Minimising the downtime of every turbine made perfect sense to him. Today, Christophe Godais has been promoted to site supervisor at Beauce, which has become a test site for new MTBI initiatives. These days he spends a lot of his time at the planning whiteboard in his office, bundling tasks for the eight technicians at the site. His staff is also more efficiently organised than before: Christophe Godais has divided them into four teams, one of which is exclusively devoted to trouble-shooting. Christophe Godais is convinced that the change process will continue. “With good planning and the continued efforts of our highly motivated technicians, I think we can improve MTBI even further in the future,” he says. 212008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=22http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=22222008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=23http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=23A symbol of continuity After a four-decade career at Vestas, Hans Laurids Pedersen is a company icon who embodies Vestas’ most enduring values. Hans Laurids Pedersen has a floor-to ceiling view of the sea and the sailboat harbour when he looks out the window of his office in the windy, coastal town of Ringkøbing, Denmark. “It’s the best there is,” he says of the scenery outside, stopping suddenly to listen for the high, irregular whistle of the wind in the sailboat riggings. “I just love that sound,” he adds, acknowledging the element that has also been his livelihood for most of his adult life. Not many people in the world can say they have been working for a wind turbine company for 40 years – for the simple reason that the turbines as we know them today just haven’t been around that long. But if anyone can make the claim, Vestas’ Hans Laurids Pedersen is certainly the one. After four decades at Vestas – he celebrated his jubilee in August – Hans Laurids is a company icon, a symbol of continuity and a fountain of wind-related information. He has entertained countless Rotary Club meetings with his verbal Vestas histories, and back in his 232008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=24http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=24”When we have a problem, we solve it. I have never seen us throw in the towel and give up.” Hans Laurids Pedersen. office, he can keep up a non-stop discourse on everything from overloaded generators to desert meteorology. Strictly speaking, though, he didn’t start working with the wind until after the energy crisis of the 70’s. But he did join Vestas 40 years ago – as a seller of farm machinery. It was a logical step for a newly-trained technical assistant back in 1968. Born and raised on a farm in the small, West Jutland community of Spjald, the 20-year-old Hans Laurids knew a lot about the needs of the farmers he dealt with. Luckily, he was both willing and able to learn new skills as the company began to change its focus from agriculture to modern energy. The heart and brains Today Hans Laurids Pedersen works at Vestas Technology R&D in Ringkøbing, where one of his main responsibilities is ‘continuous improvement management‘. Basically this has to do with the upgrading of existing wind turbines, and one of his job functions is to review all new documentation and make sure it is understandable. Which in turn means that he must understand everything himself. Employees at the nacelles assembly plant near his office in Ringkøbing will sometimes find him on the factory floor, busily examining the placement of a new part in the mass of machinery and wires that is the heart and brains of a Vestas turbine. “Once I see where a new part sits in the nacelles, that ‘photograph’ will stay in my head,” he says. “But I also like to hold a new part in my hand.” Over the years, Hans Laurids Pedersen he has held a wide variety of jobs at Vestas. In 1972 he became a purchaser, and one of his first assignments was to purchase an IT system that more or less could fill an entire office. He has also worked in sales support, accounting, customer service and production management. From 1987-2001 he was head of customer service for the entire worldwide organisation. 242008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=25http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=25“A wind turbine is a fantastic machine. Just think of it: There’s hardly a technological principle that is not represented in its construction.” Hans Laurids Pedersen. 252008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=26http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=26He has weathered many other changes as well: moves from one town to another, financial ups and downs, mergers, reorganisations and cultural clashes when his company joined forces with another. But one thing has remained constant. Whether selling a farm vehicle or procuring parts for a wind farm, Hans Laurids has always been intensely proud of his company and the way it has risen to its challenges. “That’s the reason why Vestas is Number One in the world – because of our unwavering belief in ourselves and in our ability to get things done,” he says. “I think one of my main functions in this company now is to be the optimistic voice of one who has experienced a lot and who knows that we can get through any challenge.” Keeping up the spirit One of the greatest challenges for the entire company turned up in June of 1983, when Vestas received what was, at the time, a colossal order: 56 turbines, to be manufactured, shipped, installed and running in California by 31 December. “In all of Vestas’ previous years of existence, the company had only manufactured about 80 turbines altogether,” Hans Laurids recalls. Logistics became one of his passions during those hectic months. As a company purchaser, one of his jobs was to make sure that all parts large and small were in the right place at exactly the right time. And if that meant sending someone out to the airport in the middle of the night to pick up a bolt from Copenhagen and deliver it to a factory for immediate installation – well, that was just the way it was. 262008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=27http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=27“I think one of my main functions in this company now is to be the optimistic voice of one who has experienced a lot and who knows that we can get through any challenge.” Hans Laurids Pedersen. Four technicians who were sent to California at the end of the year to get the turbines up and running never made it home for Christmas that year – a minor catastrophe for any holidayloving Dane. But today they look back on the experience fondly, Hans Laurids says. “The enthusiasm shown by everyone was totally unique. But that’s the way it is at Vestas: when we have a problem, we solve it,” he says. “I have never seen us throw in the towel and give up.” Customers and clout Another challenge that demonstrated Vestas’ Number One spirit began with some very bad news from the V80-2.0 MW turbines at the offshore wind farm known as Horns Reef 1. That was back in 2002, Hans Laurids recalls: “There were 80 Vestas turbines out there, and they all had problems with the transformers and the gearboxes. But we rose to the challenge and made the changes that were needed to satisfy our customers. We gathered a task force, identified the necessary solutions – and then we dismantled every single turbine, one by one, sent them ashore for repairs and upgrading, and re-assembled them again.” Looking back on his years at Vestas, Hans Laurids Pedersen also has some other thoughts about what has kept his company in its Number One position. “Part of it was our strategy. Back in the mid-90’s we worked to increase our market share and to become the world’s biggest turbine supplier. Turbines were relatively easy to sell then, so it was a good strategy, and it was a good foundation for our current focus on shareholder value.” “Another factor is that Vestas has achieved a large amount of political clout in the past couple of years. Our CEO Ditlev Engel has managed to gain politicians’ acceptance of modern energy on an equal footing with oil and gas.” ”Not too long ago, wind power was at best viewed as a supplement to other types of energy.” A fantastic machine Hans Laurids Pedersen is no engineer, but when it comes to wind turbines he knows “a lot about almost anything,” as he puts it. And while his company’s product has increased both in size and complexity over the years, his enthusiasm for modern energy is stronger than ever. “A wind turbine is a fantastic machine,” he says. “Just think of it: There’s hardly a technological principle that is not represented in its construction. There are principles of structural stability embodied in the tower, and mechanical principles in the cogwheels and axle. A wind turbine also makes use of electronics, electricity and computer technology.” As for the future, 60-year-old Hans Laurids has no plans for retirement “as long as my health holds out and as long as I think the work is interesting.” And he expects the work to remain interesting for a long time to come: “Our future holds some fantastic possibilities. Really fantastic! But we must never rest on our laurels. Customers should choose us because they are satisfied with us – not because we are the only one who can make a particular delivery or because we happen to be Number One.” 272008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=28http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=28EXPAN in the United States 282008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=29http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=29SION despite political challenges Even though a long-term political framework to assure the expansion of wind energy in the United States is still lacking, Vestas has chosen to invest heavily in the US market by establishing no fewer than four factories in Colorado. The reason for this is that Vestas is convinced that the United States is set to accord the highest priority to energy policy challenges, and that wind energy will play a major role in the solution. 292008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=30http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=30Massive growth in jobs With the Rocky Mountains to the west and With the 2,500 jobs that will be created at the production facilities in Colorado, it is expected that Vestas Americas will be employing more than 4,000 people by the end of 2010. By way of comparison, the average number of employees at Vestas Americas at the end of the second quarter this year was 1,220. the vast expanse of the prairie to the east, Windsor, Colorado, lies in the very heart of the United States and is situated in one of the regions with the greatest potential for wind energy in the country. Windsor is also the home of Vestas’ first factory on American soil – a blade factory that was officially opened in March this year. However, this blade factory will not remain Vestas’ solitary manufacturing outpost on the American market for very long. In August the company announced that the factory will be joined as early as 2010 by two more: a nacelle factory and another blade factory, both located in Brighton, Colorado. In addition, Vestas is working on the construction of what is to be the largest tower factory in the world in Pueblo, Colorado. In all, Vestas’ production facilities are expected to create no fewer than 2,500 new jobs in Colorado alone. The reason why Vestas has chosen to invest so heavily in the United States is the country’s enormous wind energy potential. “We have analysed the trends in American energy policy, and our results indicate that the 302008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=31http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=31Colorado leads the way market is driven by three overriding strategic challenges: energy independence, climate change and rising oil prices,” explains Peter Brun, Senior Vice President, Group Government Relations. “Taking into consideration the enormous wind resources the United States has at its disposal, it is clear to us that the country has gigantic potential for the expansion of wind energy.” Political challenges However, there are still a number of obstacles that are preventing the United States from making the most of its potential in this area. One of these is the lack of a stable, long-term policy framework at the federal level to secure the expansion of wind energy. The Production Tax Credit (PTC) scheme is important, but in recent years Congress has only extended the scheme for 1-2 years at a time, most recently in October this year when it once again was extended for only a year. But despite the lack of a long-term extension, Vestas still believes in the market. This belief is due in part to the fact that 28 states have adopted a Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which require a certain percentage of the energy used by electricity companies must stem from sustainable sources such as wind and solar power: “A long-term PTC scheme is extremely important to the Colorado is one of the states that is providing great support for the growth in wind energy. When Bill Ritter took up the post of Governor of Colorado in January 2007, he promised “a new energy economy” that involved reinforcing sustainable sources such as wind and solar power so as to help combat global warming and to guard against the exhaustion of fossil fuels, and, in particular, sky-high oil prices. Shortly after Bill Ritter became Governor, the state doubled its original goal of 10 per cent sustainable energy in 2015 to 20 per cent in 2020. The strong political backing for promoting wind energy in Colorado was one of the reasons why Vestas chose to locate the four factories here. Colorado was actually chosen following close analysis of several options. The other factors involved were that the state presents the company with a large pool of skilled employees (Colorado has one of the highest proportions of people with a college education in the United States), that the infrastructure provides easy access to road and rail transport, and that the area has excellent wind resources, and thus appreciable potential for wind energy. Moreover, the location is close to a large part of Vestas’ customer base. Bill Ritter welcomes Vestas’ presence. At the ceremony to mark the start of construction of the two latest factories, he said: “I am grateful that Vestas has once again chosen to invest in our great state. This expansion underlines Colorado’s position as a national and international leader in clean, modern energy and establishes Vestas as an invaluable partner in Colorado’s New Energy Economy, which is creating new jobs, utilising Colorado’s great intellectual capital, securing our energy future and contributing to ending our dependence on imported oil.” Governor Bill Ritter. 312008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=32http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=32Alaska Washington Montana Oregon Vestas’ existing and future production facilities in Colorado: California Idaho Wyoming Nevada Utah Colorado Windsor: A blade factory with an annual production capacity of 1,800 blades – i.e. sufficient blades for 600 wind turbines. The factory was opened in January 2008. Pueblo: A tower factory scheduled for completion in 2009, and expected to achieve full capacity in 2010. It will be the biggest tower factory in the world, with an annual capacity of 900 towers. Hawaii Arizona New Mexico development of the US wind market despite the Brighton: A blade factory with an annual production capacity of 1,800 blades – i.e. sufficient blades for 600 wind turbines. The factory is scheduled for completion in 2010. The construction of this factory will bring Vestas’ total annual production capacity in the United States up to 3,600 blades. A nacelle factory with an annual production capacity of 1,400 nacelles. The factory will be Vestas’ largest nacelle factory and is scheduled for completion in 2010. In addition to the production facilities in Colorado, Vestas is currently establishing an R&D centre in Houston, Texas. The centre will be completed in 2009, and it is expected that at least 100 people will be employed there. RPS and the current high energy prices which are currently also stimulating investments,” explains Peter Brun. Roby Roberts, Senior Vice President, External Relations at Vestas Americas, adds: “We are utterly confident that the United States will accord top priority to climate change and energy security. At the same time, we are convinced that the PTC scheme will be extended, also on a long-term basis, because the American market simply cannot do without wind energy as part of the solution to the giant energy-political challenges it is facing.” Another challenge is the absence of longdistance transmission lines to carry the power to towns and cities from the sparsely populated areas where the wind power plants are located (see Win[d] no. 13, pages 4–11). 322008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=33http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=33Renewable portfolio standard (RPS) North Dakota Vermont Minnesota Maine New Hampshire Wisconsin South Dakota New York Michigan Nebraska Iowa Indiana Illinois Ohio West Virginia Kansas Missouri Kentucky Virginia Pennsylvania Massachusetts Rhode Island Connecticut New Jersey Delaware Maryland District of Columbia State Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Target 15% 20% 20% 23% 11% 20% 20% 105 MW 25% 4% 9.5% 10% 10% 25% 11% 15% 16% 22.5% 20% 20% 24% 12.5% 25% 18% 15% 20% 10% 12% 15% 10% Year 2025 2010 2020 2020 2022 2019 2020 2025 2009 2022 2017 2015 2025 2020 2015 2025 2021 2020 2015 2013 2021 2025 2020 2020 2025 2013 2022 2020 2015 Oklahoma Arkansas Tennessee North Carolina o South Carolina Alabama Mississippi Georgia Texas Louisiana Florida US Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) targets by state, as of 7 October 2008. The “Target” column shows the percentage of electricity, or the amount in MW, to come from renewable sources by the date shown1. Delaware Hawaii Iowa Illinois Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Popular backing In spite of the political challenges, the American people are showing an increasing willingness to back wind energy, as Tom Plant, Director at the Governor’s Energy Office in Colorado, explains. “The wind energy sector has witnessed a comprehensive technological development over the past 10 years, a development that has made wind power competitive and has helped to eliminate a lot of doubts about production capacity from wind energy. Set against a background of rising oil prices and worries about greenhouse gas emissions, it is easy to understand why there is broad backing for according wind power a significant role in the energy portfolio.” The opportunities in the market are further reinforced by the fact that the USA is among the countries with the largest wind resources in the world. At the same time, figures from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) indicate that the market for wind power grew by 45 per cent in 2007 – which translates into a doubling of the installed MW in relation to 2006. With this expansion in the United States, Vestas keeps pace with the demands that stem from a rapidly growing market, as Jens Søby, President of Vestas Americas, is quick to emphasise. “Wind energy is poised to become a major form of energy in the United States, and with the expansion of our production and development facilities in the country, we at Vestas will be in a position to provide our North American customers with even better service.” Minnesota Missouri* Montana New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York North Carolina Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island Texas Utah Vermont* Virginia* Washington Wisconsin 5,880 MW 2015 Sources: 1. http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/maps/ renewable_portfolio_states.cfm#chart http://www.nawindpower.com/naw/e107_plugins/ content/content.php?content.2937 * Three states, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have set voluntary goals for renewable energy instead of binding targets. 332008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=34http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=34342008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=35http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=35A fresh look at quality From the factory floor to the top layers of management, Vestas is injecting a quality mindset into every aspect of the company’s activities. When Assistant Vice President Mark Colwell sat down for a quick break one busy morning recently, he was appalled to find that the milk in his coffee had somehow turned into little lumps of cottage cheese. The ‘best before’ date on the little milk container he had emptied into his cup was valid for another 5 months, and yet the product had obviously gone bad. It then occurred to him that his curdled milk was actually a good example of the difference between quality assurance and quality control. “The company was obviously not in complete control of its production process,” he says. “They might have fixed the problem by opening every single little packet of milk and inspecting it before it left the factory. That would be quality assurance – but that’s not a realistic option. “Quality control means fixing your processes so that they produce perfect products every time instead of trying to find and fix every defect in the product you produce. That’s 352008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=36http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=36“Quality is a prerequisite for us to maintain and develop our position on the market.” Finn Strøm Madsen, President, Vestas Technology R&D. the best way to make absolutely sure that every product from your factory is perfect.” As manager of Must-Win-Battle no. 5 – Supplier Quality – the principle of quality control has particular meaning for him. But quality is something that every Vestas employee needs to bear in mind. Vestas President and CEO Ditlev Engel puts it this way: “It is excellent processes that create excellent quality, and that is something that requires the attention of all our people, all the time. We need to have a company culture where quality is not the responsibility of a single manager or department. It is everyone’s responsibility, and this extends from the factory floor to the CEO.” Problems and processes Taking a personal responsibility for quality has resulted in significant process improvements at Vestas Blades, where 99 per cent of the extra glue injections that used to be necessary at the tip of the company’s 44-meter blades have now been eliminated. This not only improves quality – it also makes it possible to produce more blades in less time. Before their efforts began about a year ago, production employees spent hours inspecting the finished blades with infrared cameras to detect any gaps in the glue that holds the various parts of each blade together. Then they spent even more hours injecting extra glue in the gaps. The result was a perfect blade. But why not make sure the blade was perfectly glued to begin with? “From a quality standpoint, it is common sense to do things right the first time,” says Vestas Blades Senior Quality Specialist Stanislav Pliassounov, who is part of a team at Vestas Blades that has been taking a hard look at the manufacturing process. “In order to control our output, we need to understand all the inputs and be in control of them,” Stanislav Pliassounov explains. One of the first things he and the rest of the team discovered was that the Vestas blade factory in Lauchhammer, Germany, had already reduced glue injections at the tip of the blade to a minimum by analysing glue patterns, mechanical tolerances and the dimensional characteristics and variations of each component in the blade. This helped them to understand gap variations and enabled them to make changes in the way the glue was applied. “We simply took the best practices from Germany and applied them to our other factories,” Stanislav Pliassounov relates. Currently, the team is looking at the root end of the blades. This is a more complicated problem, because gap variations at the root are less predictable than they are at the tip. The problem is being solved by making measurements of each blade before the glue is applied. This enables the factory to make individualised adjustments to the gluing process. “Our goal is to create processes that are so capable that we know they work, rather than having to spend endless hours inspecting the finished product afterwards,” says Vestas Blades President Ole Borup. “We have solved the problem at the tip, and we expect to achieve the same results for the root by the end of the calendar year.” 362008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=37http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=37Working with suppliers The story at Vestas Blades is one of internal checks and controls. But there is another dimension to quality control as it relates to external suppliers. Their processes also need to be in control. “We need to make sure our suppliers’ processes meet our specifications – and work with them to make improvements if necessary,” says President of Vestas Technology R&D Finn Strøm Madsen. “The bottom line is that we ourselves must ensure that our suppliers’ processes are excellent. We cannot rely solely on their assurance. This control will make the difference between us being a good company and a world-class company.” “We have to fundamentally change our behaviour,” he adds. “Managers need to ask new types of questions to make sure that quality is at the top of everyone’s agenda.” One example of what such efforts can achieve may be found in Vietnam, where Vestas has been working closely with CS Wind Tower Co. Ltd., a supplier that delivers hundreds of steel towers to the company every year. “Manufacturing quality was unstable, which is an indication that some processes were not in control,” says Senior Manager of System Quality Mark Rehder, who has been driving some cooperation efforts at Vestas Towers A/S. “We are facilitating the transformation from a ‘repair culture’ to a more process-aware culture with a focus on failure prevention.” The two partners are making good progress at the company with the help of numerous activities such as web conferences on process quality, training programmes, qual- 372008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=38http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=38ity leadership seminars, best-practice sharing, on-site consulting and technical supervision. Circumferential welding defects, for example, have been reduced by approximately 70 per cent, and surface treatment now falls more consistently within the specification windows provided by Vestas. The company employs some 1,950 people at three different factories in Vietnam and China. Work still needs to be done to ensure that newly-achieved quality levels can be maintained, notes Managing Director S.S. Kim, who is responsible for the two factories in Vietnam. But he is optimistic about the future. “Our quality targets this year are difficult,” he says. ”But we have already achieved more than we expected, and through our successes, we have gained a lot of self-confidence that 382008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=39http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=39“Quality control means fixing your processes so that they produce perfect products every time instead of trying to find and fix every defect in the product you produce.” Mark Colwell, Assistant Vice President, Technology R&D, Operations. Urgently important Quality control has in recent years become a matter of urgent importance for Vestas. “Customer expectations are becoming higher and higher,” says Finn Strøm Madsen. “One of their major concerns is reliability, and of course quality has a major influence on this. Quality is a prerequisite for us to maintain and develop our position on the market.” And while customers grow more demanding, the number of competitors is increasing by leaps and bounds. In China alone, Vestas must now compete with more than 30 different turbine manufacturers. “They’re out there, and they are coming after what we’ve got,” says Mark Colwell. “In order for us to generate better customer value, we have to be smarter and better and faster, and that requires control.” Quality control will also have a major impact on Vestas’ goals for the future. Increased efficiency due to excellent processes is key to the growth that the company wants to achieve. “We are fundamentally changing the can be used to accelerate the improvement process even further. We now believe that even the most difficult targets can be achieved if we make our best efforts and work together.” game, from that of a low-volume, craftoriented business to a high-volume, high-tech company,” Mark Colwell notes. “This requires processes that can produce a lot of product. Today we are number one in a 20-gigawatt market, but we want to be number one in a 140-gigawatt market by 20201. If we want to be that big, we need to focus our efforts on being in control.” A corporate mindset In the final analysis, what the company is trying to achieve is not just a question of products and productivity. “We’re talking about a corporate quality mindset in the broadest possible terms,” says Finn Strøm Madsen. “Awareness of quality affects not only our products but also our expenses, delivery, safety and corporate responsibility.” And as CEO Ditlev Engel points out, quality control loops straight into the Vestas mission statement: “Failure in this area is simply not an option for anyone,” he says. “And as in all efforts in business, the road to excellence begins and ends with leadership.” Source: 1. BTM Consult 392008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=40http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=40Airborne in Latin America 402008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=41http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=41Wind is the natural next step towards higher energy production in Latin America, where the demand for energy is growing fast. New political commitment is bringing the wind power market to take-off. New renewable energy regulations are falling into place in Latin America. Renewable energy goals are being set. By 2015, many countries aim to have an energy mix where the wind contribution is 8 to 10 per cent. The need for more energy is increasingly urgent in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and a number of the Caribbean islands, where rising demand threatens to outstrip supply. Not only that, there is a widespread desire to reduce fossil fuel dependence. By freeing up their energy markets, Latin American governments are showing their recognition of wind as part of the answer. And opportunities are ripening at last for the international wind power industry to exploit the region’s vast wind resources. European interest According to Juan Araluce, President of Vestas Mediterranean, the biggest interest in the Latin American nations comes from Southern Europe. 412008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=42http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=42“Most forms of power production are dependent on water to a greater or lesser extent. Wind power is not, making it an ideal solution in areas where water resources are under pressure.” Juan Araluce, President, Vestas Mediterranean. “We are seeing many customers in Spain, Italy and Portugal who are interested in moving to Latin America. Almost all the large European utilities have announced big investment plans,” he says. “Using our knowledge of the Latin American markets and our experience in the wind industry worldwide, we can provide customers with the right advice and assistance during the entire project.” Oscar Balestro, General Manager for Vestas Latin America agrees, adding: “It is important that we act not only as a supplier but also as a partner for each customer, assisting with local regulations and presenting requests to the relevant governments. To ensure successful wind projects, we need to work with all involved parties.” Extending the organisation Vestas has opened a new office in São Paulo, Brazil, to provide this comprehensive support. The General Manager is Román Fabra, formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in Vestas Mediterranean. “We are building a fully operational organisation in São Paulo, where we will work with sales, projects, service and legal aspects,” he says. “The plan is to become established all over the country.” The Brazil office supplements Vestas’ Latin American head office, established in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1992. From Argentina, Vestas has contributed to the extensive dialogues with the governments so important to stimulating the region’s wind markets. “From the beginning, our main objective was to help create the right conditions in each country by encouraging the governments to introduce new regulations. We have discussed with each government the benefit of having wind as part of the energy mix,” Oscar Balestro remarks. Wind and water Brazil and Mexico are expected to drive the Latin American market. Of all the countries in the region, their wind resources are the greatest – as are their energy demands. Here, as in other parts of the world where the climate is either seasonally or permanently arid, one of the most compelling arguments for going with the wind is water. Brazil is a particular case in point. 422008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=43http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=43A significant obstacle to wind power development in Brazil has been the belief that it is too expensive. Due to the predominance of hydropower, Brazil’s cost of energy is considerably lower than in other countries with a higher dependence on fossil fuels, where wind power is both a more economical and cleaner option. Nevertheless, it could be popular hydropower itself that tips the balance and makes Brazil a full-blown wind power market. Power in dry times The fact is that in the northeast, Brazil’s windiest region, the wind blows hardest during the driest times of year – in other words, when the reservoirs feeding the hydro power stations are at their lowest levels. Along the São Francisco River, for example, dry-season irrigation by farmers can easily conflict with the need for water for hydro power, depleting reservoirs to the extent that power production is threatened. Wind power is a way to get round that conflict – supplying energy when the reservoirs are at their lowest ebb. “Most forms of power production are dependent on water to a greater or lesser extent. Wind power is not, making it an ideal solution in areas where water resources are under pressure,” says Juan Araluce. 432008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=44http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=44“This non-reliance on water is a strong argument in favour of wind on many of the markets we currently consider to be emerging.” Ongoing support There is clearly still much to be done in supporting the development of the wind power market in Latin America. Most important of all is a long-term political commitment to providing the financial and legal framework for exploiting the vast wind resources – producing the gigawatts that will go a long way to solving pressing energy needs. At the moment the signs are positive. Wind is becoming part of the political agenda. The first wind farm investments are being made. And Vestas is in a strong position to assist as the region’s potential unfolds. 442008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=45http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=45Green Brazil Brazil already holds a distinctive place on the renewable energy market. With 85 per cent of its electricity derived from hydropower, few countries have been so green for so long. Extensive wind mapping of Brazil – representing 50 per cent of South America both in size and population Mexican promise In Mexico, water supplies can be an issue in the arid north of the country. Here, in the state of Baja California, wind development potential is at its highest – 3,000 MW over the next two to four years, largely due to the energy needs of US companies just across the border. Down south in Oaxaca, the next years’ expectations are for wind installations totalling 1,000 to 2,000 MW. “The legal framework in Mexico is under construction and will create excellent conditions for wind development where the government will subsidise transmission costs, grid connection and contracts with renewable power generators,” says Oscar Balestro. “The Mexican government has discovered that it is cheaper and faster to erect wind farms than conventional thermal power plants,” adds Juan Araluce. Argentine opportunities Four years of keeping non-renewable energy prices at an artificial low have come to an end in Argentina, where the government has opened up the market to new power generating capacity. In the future, new wind farms will benefit from priority connection to the grid. Stable Chile In Chile, a series of projects are underway. A recently enforced law requires 5 per cent of the country’s electricity to be derived from renewable sources by 2010 – 10 per cent by 2024. This has provided the necessary framework for Chile’s first wind farm, a 50 MW facility comprising Vestas wind turbines which was opened earlier this year. Oscar Balestro got straight to work on the opportunities that arose when the new legislation was introduced just a few months ago. “We have presented a series of projects to Argentina’s secretary of energy asking for power purchasing agreements. For 2010-2012, the Argentine market potential is for 500 to 800 MW,” he says. – has revealed 143 GW of potential. By the end of 2007, Brazil had just 247 MW of wind turbine capacity installed. Right now Vestas has 179 MW under construction.2008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=46http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=46The biggest development centre in the industry ready to open The doors to the biggest and most advanced development and technology centre in the industry will be opened up when Vestas Technology R&D officially inaugurates its new facilities on 27 November 2008. The first employees have already taken up their posts in the 16,000 m2 building in Skejby near Århus, Denmark. The building has been designed with a view to providing the best possible framework for integrated product development in collaboration with suppliers and other interested parties. In its present form, the centre will be the workplace for approximately 500 people, but as growth in the sector is continuing apace, it has already been decided that the capacity of the centre is to be almost doubled. The new facility is to work closely with Vestas’ other development centres in Singapore, Chennai (India), The Isle of Wight (UK), as well as the centre currently under construction in Houston,Texas (USA). 462008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=47http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=47New office in Rome Already located in Taranto, Vestas Italia has recently opened a new office in Rome. The decision was taken to bring Vestas Italia closer to its customers and the political world. The General Manager of Vestas Italia, Rainer Karan, explains: “The wind energy business in Italy is very much governed by politics. Thanks to this new location, Vestas Italia will be more visible and accessible on a national level.” The opening takes place in the same year as Vestas celebrates its 10th anniversary in the Italian market. Rome also has logistical advantages in reaching the emerging markets that Vestas Italia covers. Meetings with After twelve years of operating with two different local sales units in Spain and Portugal, Vestas has merged these under the name Vestas Iberia, located in Madrid. The decision is based on the level of sales expected in both markets in the near future. “There is an internal need to gain greater levels of efficiency across our entire territory,” explains Juan Araluce, President of Vestas Mediterranean. Vestas Iberia employs 1,370 workers and its activities comprise the sale, construction, operation and maintenance of wind power plants. Miguel Picardo, the new General Manager of Vestas Iberia, says: “This merger will allow for synergies and economies of scale among the two countries, as well as an improved business alignment across all the different areas and departments.” Vestas has been in Spain for over twenty years and in Portugal since 1996. The group is the second-largest wind turbine supplier in the Spanish market and the fifth-largest in Portugal. customers from the Eastern Mediterranean countries will be easier to arrange, since the airport in Rome has direct flights to most of the main cities in these countries. New Iberian sales unit in Madrid 472008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=48http://nozebra.ipapercms.dk/Vestas/VestasWind/UK/1408/?Page=48Win[d] W I N D , O I L A N D G A S Contacts Vestas Northern Europe +46 40 376 700 Sales and service in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Poland and the Baltic area. Vestas Central Europe +49 4841 9710 Sales and service in Germany, Austria, Benelux, Russia and Eastern Europe. Vestas Mediterranean +34 932 41 98 00 Sales and service in the countries of the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, and North and West Africa. Vestas Asia Pacific +65 6303 6500 Sales and service in Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, India and the rest of Asia. Vestas Americas +1 503 327 2000 Sales and service in North America. Vestas Offshore +45 97 30 00 00 Sales and service, offshore. EDITORS: Peter Wenzel Kruse (Editor in Chief) and Hanne Poder Sørensen. TEXT: Anne Nielsen, Cath Mersh, Jack Jackson, Peter Gisselmann Rasmussen, Manel Romeu Bellés and Hanne Poder Sørensen. UK For more information about Vestas sales and service units, go to www.vestas.com and click on Contact. Vestas Wind Systems A/S Alsvej 21 · DK–8900 Randers · Denmark Tel. +45 97 30 00 00 · Fax +45 97 30 00 01 vestas@vestas.com · www.vestas.com2008-11-06T09:22:57+01:00