Bushing Manufacturer Implements Program to Improve ... - ABB Group
Bushings
Bushing Manufacturer Implements Program to Improve Factory Productivity
Q3 - 2004
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
58
to be a player in a business where one important segment of customers is increasingly leaving the country while the other is typically doing almost everything possible to keep from replacing even the very oldest of its installations? Add to this
A wise man once said, let us have the courage not to worry about those things we cannot change and focus instead on those things we can and, of course, have the wisdom to distinguish between the two. Bushing manufacturers, it seems, increasingly finds themselves in very much this type of dilemma - caught between industry factors some of which are beyond their control and others which they might have the possibility to influence through well-chosen strategies.
the fact that most final users are reluctant either to accept or to pay a premium for new technologies in the field and you have just a sampling of the types of challenges which currently face suppliers of bushings in North America.
The overall demand for condenser bushings in North America, as elsewhere in the world, is determined by the two major customer segments - the power transformer manufacturers (OEMs) who purchase them to equip new transformers; and the electric utilities who generally represent the final users for transformers but who also purchase bushings directly either for replacement or for spare-stocking reasons.
However, in spite of these accurately because of them manufacturers in this market have had to be particularly resourceful and look at every opportunity to re-think and refine how they operate their business.
In the utility sector of the bushings market, ABB’s Marketing Manager, Don Ristuccia states that one of the dominant trends within the United States in recent years has been for utilities to put off any major upgrade or refurbishment projects. Rather, the emphasis has been placed on maintenance programs aimed at extending the life of existing installations. Photo: Courtesy of ABB
obstacles - or perhaps more
INMR talks with management at ABB’s bushing plant in Alamo, Tennessee - reportedly the single largest such facility in
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
Question: Who would want
Johnson. Need for more systematic replacement programs for old bushing style shown to be prone to rapid failure.
Ristuccia acknowledges that there is perhaps little the industry can do to reverse or even to slow this trend which has dampened the direct demand for bushings by utilities. However, he and Customer Service Coordinator Reeve Johnson note that a policy of relying too heavily on maintenance can in many cases not be the optimal one to follow. For example, they point out there are tens of thousands of a particular type of bushing offered many years ago by General Electric which are still in-service across the U.S. and which apparently have been shown to deteriorate very quickly due to internal defects. As a result, they
The clear trend in recent years has been for much of the power
the world with a current annual manufacturing volume of over
transformer business
15,000 units. Responding to
to re-locate outside of
the realities of today’s bushings
the United States and
marketplace, this plant has recently adopted a new
Canada in the search
production scheduling system
of lower labour costs.
aimed at boosting efficiency and productivity.
Ristuccia: OEM customers outside the Americas need greater sales support for the IEEE standards.
59
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
Alamo operation can adapt to and even take advantage of. In fact, he sees a special opportunity to gain competitive advantage since foreignbased transformer manufacturers often require additional support to permit them to satisfy the special requirements of the IEEE bushing standard.
Core winding at ABB Alamo factory.
feel that more utilities should be putting into place replacement programs for these bushings before the onset of potentially rapid failures.
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
“Many utilities,” observes Johnson, “know exactly where they have these bushings and will watch them very
carefully. They are aware of the problem and will verify the bushings whenever the transformer is taken out-of-service.” However, he also believes that this situation is not necessarily universally-acknowledged nor are all utilities taking what he feels is the appropriate action in this regard. Among OEMs, Ristuccia reports that the clear trend in recent years has been for much of this business to re-locate outside of the United States and Canada in the search of lower labour costs. Whereas about five years ago virtually all of ABB Alamo’s OEM bushing business was local, today, he says, over half is ‘offshore’. Moreover, he fully expects this trend to continue so that before the end of this decade nearly 75 per cent of this market segment will involve selling to and servicing major accounts overseas. This is one market development which Ristuccia feels ABB’s
Says Ristuccia, “since many of our OEM customers are now located outside the Americas, we think there is a greater level of sales support needed to educate them about the IEEE environment. I see this as an opportunity for us since we can then use our customer service capabilities as a sales tool. In fact, we feel it is one of the reasons we have been able to keep most of this business even if it has left the country.” Ristuccia also claims that a close relationship between the bushings manufacturer and the utility end user market can be of great added value to the OEM customer, especially if they are foreign-based and could benefit from better understanding what their North American customers need and expect. One of the critical factors in supplying the OEM market sector has typically been delivery lead times. According to Ristuccia, this has been made all the more important by the fact that the transformer OEMs themselves are increasingly using fast delivery times as one of their own selling tools to the utilities. This, in turn, has placed even greater emphasis on the need to respond quickly and reliably to customer orders. In order to keep delivery times as short as possible and to better rationalize its enormous annual production volume, the ABB Alamo plant has divided up its bushings business into two major categories: those types which have the greatest demand and which it refers to as its ‘quick ship’ styles (or QSS); and literally everything else in its bushing product portfolio. According to Johnson, the former category, which today represents
Byström. Ensuring that no production slot goes unfilled.
60
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
The second category consists of what ABB management term ‘specials’ - generally those styles with a lower unit demand and where the supply time of certain production components, especially porcelain, will determine the overall lead time offered to customers. Says Johnson, “for the specials, we typically offer 10 weeks if we have the porcelain in stock or, if we do not, a time which adds material lead time plus manufacturing lead time. In the latter case, this can vary from 10 to 24 weeks. To reduce the influence of ordering many different porcelain profiles, ABB Alamo, like others in the
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
some 75 per cent of the bushings business, is comprised of only about 10 individual styles. All QSS bushings are then offered to customers with a maximum delivery lead time of 6 weeks.
Condenser bushing cores enter impregnation tank.
61
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
Thanks to the new loading system, the Alamo plant can now produce 16,000 bushings yearly with fewer workers than in the previous year when volume was only 13,500 units. Photo: Courtesy of ABB
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
involved in developing the new system, notes: “as a policy, we will not build any units for stocking purposes alone. Therefore, in putting this system into place we tried to achieve a continually balanced production flow based on our order intake every week. In the case of our QSS styles, for example, we have established procedures to load the factory five weeks out.”
Machining tubes for condenser windings.
industry, has standardized on one high specific creepage distance for all bushing styles and applications. According to Ristuccia, the new production loading system put into
place at the Alamo factory late in 2003 had the intended goal of ensuring a balanced loading given the differing lead time requirements of the QSS and Specials bushing styles. Johnson, who was closely
Operations Manager, Anna Byström, explains the philosophy behind the new plant loading system. “Overall,” she says, “we decide on an even load for the factory in terms of so many units per day. Since we have only a certain amount of production slots open for any particular manufacturing step, if we find that any of these will be open, we try to move other bushing styles either forward or backward in scheduling to ensure that no one slot goes unfilled.” Essentially, the system developed to accomplish this relies on a specific set of rules for slot filling and which are based on logical manufacturing procedures. Some styles for example have longer processing times and therefore the new system, referred to internally as the Advanced
Bushings at oil fill and process station.
64
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
Manufacturing Project, avoids any potential for overloading these styles.
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
According to Ristuccia, in its first several months of implementation the new system has already had a noticeable positive impact on productivity and efficiency at the Alamo plant. “If we look at benchmarks such as revenue per employee,” he says, “our production efficiency is on a continuously improving line. A lot of that is due entirely to the loading of the plant.” He also notes that, thanks to this system, the Alamo facility can now produce 16,000 bushings yearly with fewer workers than in the previous year when volume was only 13,500 units. Russ Frame, Bushing Line Product Coordinator, indicates that one of the unusual aspects of the new loading system is that it actually originated from the marketing side as part of an effort to minimize the occurrence of late deliveries. Notes Frame, “the biggest complaint among customers in the past was fluctuating lead times due to the previous production scheduling processes we used at the plant,
25 kV condenser bushing in assembly fixture.
including stocking and pullbased systems.”
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
“The basic reason why these did not work,” he continues, “is because orders typically do not flow in smoothly. As a result, we firmed up what would be universally acceptable as a delivery lead time for the customer and developed the new system around always meeting this requirement. Since January of this year, our lead times for QSS styles have been very reliable.” Ristuccia provides an example of why relying on a pull type approach to production scheduling would not be the most efficient in this business. “In the past,” he says, “using the pull approach might mean that we too would have to stop producing during the time of summer shutdowns at the factories of our OEM customers. However, with the new approach, we continue to produce but relying now on our slot filling techniques.”
One of these techniques apparently involves the possibility of certain customers accepting early delivery of a bushing. In such situations, an order can be pushed ahead to fill any anticipated empty production slot. At the same time, there are certain fundamental principles which management try never to violate. One of these, according to Frame, is that there is no tampering or adjustment of items at the front end of the production schedule, typically 2 to 3 weeks out. Implementation of the new loading system does not revolve around a computer but rather is based on a face-to-face load planning meeting held once a week between the marketing department and production staff. Says Ristuccia, “we did not want to make this system overly complex but chose to keep it as simplistic as possible. I have been in this industry since 1965 and this is easily the best system I have seen.” One of the important recent developments in the IEEE bushings business has been efforts within the industry to reduce the number
Frame. Reducing number of IEEE voltage classes for bushings has not worked out as intended.
66
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
However, Ristuccia and Frame observe that while they supported this effort from the start, it has clearly not had the outcome originally intended. Indeed, Ristuccia notes that while, for example, the 25 kV bushing class should have already been entirely replaced by the next higher class 34 kV - the 25 kV style still remains one of ABB’s largest selling units. “There are still many transformers at this voltage level,” states Ristuccia, “and we have seen absolutely no change in what the customer asks for. The 34 kV bushing requires more space in the transformer and also makes it higher. So, why should the customer order it?” Ristuccia claims that ABB, like most other manufacturers, would have been delighted with the intended change since it would mean fewer classes to produce - something which could help boost factory efficiency throughout the industry. He also notes that utilities sitting on the relevant IEEE Committees supported this change as well. Yet, operating practices in reality just were not being modified to reflect the new standards and, as for the transformer OEMs, their philosophy has always been to give the customer exactly what they want. “In a global way,” sighs Ristuccia, “the idea for reducing the number of different voltage classes makes a lot of sense but, it probably will just not happen in reality.” Responding to an international trend toward greater acceptance of dry type condenser bushings employing silicone sheds in place of porcelain, ABB Alamo has begun offering these types of units to North American customers. These bushings, designed and
built to IEEE standards, are imported from other ABB production plants in Europe and modified, if necessary, to suit the local application.
forces but rather from higher commodity costs, particularly copper which he says will rise significantly in cost in the coming year.
Ristuccia observes that most suppliers in the industry agree that the long-term future for bushings involves oil-free designs employing silicone insulators. However, driving such a technology shift forward is apparently proving to be as difficult as implementing the change to the new reduced number of voltage classes in the standards.
Faced with an environment where the utilities have not adjusted to new standards aimed at streamlining the variety of different voltage classes nor shown any broad acceptance of new dry-type bushing technology, ABB management has chosen instead to place emphasis on internal ‘controllables’, particularly how the factory is operated.
“The major problem,” remarks Ristuccia, “is that the cost to produce these dry-type units is significantly greater and even up to double that for conventional porcelain and oil designs. Therefore, it is difficult in the present utility environment for this new technology to be accepted as the industry standard.”
At the same time, Ristuccia admits that the new production loading scheme for bushings may prove much more difficult to implement for the other products offered by ABB Alamo, which include tap changers, gas control systems, bushing potential devices and other transformer components. “Now,” he says, “the tricky part will be to apply this same approach to these much more technically complex products.” ⌧
At the same time, Ristuccia and Johnson note that there are still customers for the new technology, especially in those cases where there are concrete benefits such as seismic application areas or where pollution problems require frequent cleaning and maintenance of the porcelain housings. In the end, they see it as a ‘chicken and egg’ conundrum where greater production volumes are needed to reduce manufacturing costs but are difficult to obtain given today’s high costs of producing these units in only limited quantities. From a competitive standpoint, Ristuccia observes that the bushings industry in North America has recently witnessed two major corporate changes as Siemens PTD has purchased the Trench Group while Lapp Insulators has divested itself of its bushings division which now operates under the name PCore Electric. While it is perhaps too early for him to judge how this might impact on the overall competitive environment for bushings, he does note that there are now pressures on pricing coming not from competitive
Photo: INMR ©
of different voltage classes within the standards as a means of increasing production efficiency for manufacturers. There would also be important benefits for users since a smaller variety of types would mean lower numbers of stocks of spares.
For the most part, dry type bushings with silicone housings have so far remained an object of interest only at trade shows.
67
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
Bushing Manufacturer Implements Program to Improve Factory Productivity
Q3 - 2004
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
58
to be a player in a business where one important segment of customers is increasingly leaving the country while the other is typically doing almost everything possible to keep from replacing even the very oldest of its installations? Add to this
A wise man once said, let us have the courage not to worry about those things we cannot change and focus instead on those things we can and, of course, have the wisdom to distinguish between the two. Bushing manufacturers, it seems, increasingly finds themselves in very much this type of dilemma - caught between industry factors some of which are beyond their control and others which they might have the possibility to influence through well-chosen strategies.
the fact that most final users are reluctant either to accept or to pay a premium for new technologies in the field and you have just a sampling of the types of challenges which currently face suppliers of bushings in North America.
The overall demand for condenser bushings in North America, as elsewhere in the world, is determined by the two major customer segments - the power transformer manufacturers (OEMs) who purchase them to equip new transformers; and the electric utilities who generally represent the final users for transformers but who also purchase bushings directly either for replacement or for spare-stocking reasons.
However, in spite of these accurately because of them manufacturers in this market have had to be particularly resourceful and look at every opportunity to re-think and refine how they operate their business.
In the utility sector of the bushings market, ABB’s Marketing Manager, Don Ristuccia states that one of the dominant trends within the United States in recent years has been for utilities to put off any major upgrade or refurbishment projects. Rather, the emphasis has been placed on maintenance programs aimed at extending the life of existing installations. Photo: Courtesy of ABB
obstacles - or perhaps more
INMR talks with management at ABB’s bushing plant in Alamo, Tennessee - reportedly the single largest such facility in
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
Question: Who would want
Johnson. Need for more systematic replacement programs for old bushing style shown to be prone to rapid failure.
Ristuccia acknowledges that there is perhaps little the industry can do to reverse or even to slow this trend which has dampened the direct demand for bushings by utilities. However, he and Customer Service Coordinator Reeve Johnson note that a policy of relying too heavily on maintenance can in many cases not be the optimal one to follow. For example, they point out there are tens of thousands of a particular type of bushing offered many years ago by General Electric which are still in-service across the U.S. and which apparently have been shown to deteriorate very quickly due to internal defects. As a result, they
The clear trend in recent years has been for much of the power
the world with a current annual manufacturing volume of over
transformer business
15,000 units. Responding to
to re-locate outside of
the realities of today’s bushings
the United States and
marketplace, this plant has recently adopted a new
Canada in the search
production scheduling system
of lower labour costs.
aimed at boosting efficiency and productivity.
Ristuccia: OEM customers outside the Americas need greater sales support for the IEEE standards.
59
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
Alamo operation can adapt to and even take advantage of. In fact, he sees a special opportunity to gain competitive advantage since foreignbased transformer manufacturers often require additional support to permit them to satisfy the special requirements of the IEEE bushing standard.
Core winding at ABB Alamo factory.
feel that more utilities should be putting into place replacement programs for these bushings before the onset of potentially rapid failures.
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
“Many utilities,” observes Johnson, “know exactly where they have these bushings and will watch them very
carefully. They are aware of the problem and will verify the bushings whenever the transformer is taken out-of-service.” However, he also believes that this situation is not necessarily universally-acknowledged nor are all utilities taking what he feels is the appropriate action in this regard. Among OEMs, Ristuccia reports that the clear trend in recent years has been for much of this business to re-locate outside of the United States and Canada in the search of lower labour costs. Whereas about five years ago virtually all of ABB Alamo’s OEM bushing business was local, today, he says, over half is ‘offshore’. Moreover, he fully expects this trend to continue so that before the end of this decade nearly 75 per cent of this market segment will involve selling to and servicing major accounts overseas. This is one market development which Ristuccia feels ABB’s
Says Ristuccia, “since many of our OEM customers are now located outside the Americas, we think there is a greater level of sales support needed to educate them about the IEEE environment. I see this as an opportunity for us since we can then use our customer service capabilities as a sales tool. In fact, we feel it is one of the reasons we have been able to keep most of this business even if it has left the country.” Ristuccia also claims that a close relationship between the bushings manufacturer and the utility end user market can be of great added value to the OEM customer, especially if they are foreign-based and could benefit from better understanding what their North American customers need and expect. One of the critical factors in supplying the OEM market sector has typically been delivery lead times. According to Ristuccia, this has been made all the more important by the fact that the transformer OEMs themselves are increasingly using fast delivery times as one of their own selling tools to the utilities. This, in turn, has placed even greater emphasis on the need to respond quickly and reliably to customer orders. In order to keep delivery times as short as possible and to better rationalize its enormous annual production volume, the ABB Alamo plant has divided up its bushings business into two major categories: those types which have the greatest demand and which it refers to as its ‘quick ship’ styles (or QSS); and literally everything else in its bushing product portfolio. According to Johnson, the former category, which today represents
Byström. Ensuring that no production slot goes unfilled.
60
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
The second category consists of what ABB management term ‘specials’ - generally those styles with a lower unit demand and where the supply time of certain production components, especially porcelain, will determine the overall lead time offered to customers. Says Johnson, “for the specials, we typically offer 10 weeks if we have the porcelain in stock or, if we do not, a time which adds material lead time plus manufacturing lead time. In the latter case, this can vary from 10 to 24 weeks. To reduce the influence of ordering many different porcelain profiles, ABB Alamo, like others in the
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
some 75 per cent of the bushings business, is comprised of only about 10 individual styles. All QSS bushings are then offered to customers with a maximum delivery lead time of 6 weeks.
Condenser bushing cores enter impregnation tank.
61
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
Thanks to the new loading system, the Alamo plant can now produce 16,000 bushings yearly with fewer workers than in the previous year when volume was only 13,500 units. Photo: Courtesy of ABB
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
involved in developing the new system, notes: “as a policy, we will not build any units for stocking purposes alone. Therefore, in putting this system into place we tried to achieve a continually balanced production flow based on our order intake every week. In the case of our QSS styles, for example, we have established procedures to load the factory five weeks out.”
Machining tubes for condenser windings.
industry, has standardized on one high specific creepage distance for all bushing styles and applications. According to Ristuccia, the new production loading system put into
place at the Alamo factory late in 2003 had the intended goal of ensuring a balanced loading given the differing lead time requirements of the QSS and Specials bushing styles. Johnson, who was closely
Operations Manager, Anna Byström, explains the philosophy behind the new plant loading system. “Overall,” she says, “we decide on an even load for the factory in terms of so many units per day. Since we have only a certain amount of production slots open for any particular manufacturing step, if we find that any of these will be open, we try to move other bushing styles either forward or backward in scheduling to ensure that no one slot goes unfilled.” Essentially, the system developed to accomplish this relies on a specific set of rules for slot filling and which are based on logical manufacturing procedures. Some styles for example have longer processing times and therefore the new system, referred to internally as the Advanced
Bushings at oil fill and process station.
64
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
Manufacturing Project, avoids any potential for overloading these styles.
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
According to Ristuccia, in its first several months of implementation the new system has already had a noticeable positive impact on productivity and efficiency at the Alamo plant. “If we look at benchmarks such as revenue per employee,” he says, “our production efficiency is on a continuously improving line. A lot of that is due entirely to the loading of the plant.” He also notes that, thanks to this system, the Alamo facility can now produce 16,000 bushings yearly with fewer workers than in the previous year when volume was only 13,500 units. Russ Frame, Bushing Line Product Coordinator, indicates that one of the unusual aspects of the new loading system is that it actually originated from the marketing side as part of an effort to minimize the occurrence of late deliveries. Notes Frame, “the biggest complaint among customers in the past was fluctuating lead times due to the previous production scheduling processes we used at the plant,
25 kV condenser bushing in assembly fixture.
including stocking and pullbased systems.”
Photo: Courtesy of ABB
“The basic reason why these did not work,” he continues, “is because orders typically do not flow in smoothly. As a result, we firmed up what would be universally acceptable as a delivery lead time for the customer and developed the new system around always meeting this requirement. Since January of this year, our lead times for QSS styles have been very reliable.” Ristuccia provides an example of why relying on a pull type approach to production scheduling would not be the most efficient in this business. “In the past,” he says, “using the pull approach might mean that we too would have to stop producing during the time of summer shutdowns at the factories of our OEM customers. However, with the new approach, we continue to produce but relying now on our slot filling techniques.”
One of these techniques apparently involves the possibility of certain customers accepting early delivery of a bushing. In such situations, an order can be pushed ahead to fill any anticipated empty production slot. At the same time, there are certain fundamental principles which management try never to violate. One of these, according to Frame, is that there is no tampering or adjustment of items at the front end of the production schedule, typically 2 to 3 weeks out. Implementation of the new loading system does not revolve around a computer but rather is based on a face-to-face load planning meeting held once a week between the marketing department and production staff. Says Ristuccia, “we did not want to make this system overly complex but chose to keep it as simplistic as possible. I have been in this industry since 1965 and this is easily the best system I have seen.” One of the important recent developments in the IEEE bushings business has been efforts within the industry to reduce the number
Frame. Reducing number of IEEE voltage classes for bushings has not worked out as intended.
66
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
However, Ristuccia and Frame observe that while they supported this effort from the start, it has clearly not had the outcome originally intended. Indeed, Ristuccia notes that while, for example, the 25 kV bushing class should have already been entirely replaced by the next higher class 34 kV - the 25 kV style still remains one of ABB’s largest selling units. “There are still many transformers at this voltage level,” states Ristuccia, “and we have seen absolutely no change in what the customer asks for. The 34 kV bushing requires more space in the transformer and also makes it higher. So, why should the customer order it?” Ristuccia claims that ABB, like most other manufacturers, would have been delighted with the intended change since it would mean fewer classes to produce - something which could help boost factory efficiency throughout the industry. He also notes that utilities sitting on the relevant IEEE Committees supported this change as well. Yet, operating practices in reality just were not being modified to reflect the new standards and, as for the transformer OEMs, their philosophy has always been to give the customer exactly what they want. “In a global way,” sighs Ristuccia, “the idea for reducing the number of different voltage classes makes a lot of sense but, it probably will just not happen in reality.” Responding to an international trend toward greater acceptance of dry type condenser bushings employing silicone sheds in place of porcelain, ABB Alamo has begun offering these types of units to North American customers. These bushings, designed and
built to IEEE standards, are imported from other ABB production plants in Europe and modified, if necessary, to suit the local application.
forces but rather from higher commodity costs, particularly copper which he says will rise significantly in cost in the coming year.
Ristuccia observes that most suppliers in the industry agree that the long-term future for bushings involves oil-free designs employing silicone insulators. However, driving such a technology shift forward is apparently proving to be as difficult as implementing the change to the new reduced number of voltage classes in the standards.
Faced with an environment where the utilities have not adjusted to new standards aimed at streamlining the variety of different voltage classes nor shown any broad acceptance of new dry-type bushing technology, ABB management has chosen instead to place emphasis on internal ‘controllables’, particularly how the factory is operated.
“The major problem,” remarks Ristuccia, “is that the cost to produce these dry-type units is significantly greater and even up to double that for conventional porcelain and oil designs. Therefore, it is difficult in the present utility environment for this new technology to be accepted as the industry standard.”
At the same time, Ristuccia admits that the new production loading scheme for bushings may prove much more difficult to implement for the other products offered by ABB Alamo, which include tap changers, gas control systems, bushing potential devices and other transformer components. “Now,” he says, “the tricky part will be to apply this same approach to these much more technically complex products.” ⌧
At the same time, Ristuccia and Johnson note that there are still customers for the new technology, especially in those cases where there are concrete benefits such as seismic application areas or where pollution problems require frequent cleaning and maintenance of the porcelain housings. In the end, they see it as a ‘chicken and egg’ conundrum where greater production volumes are needed to reduce manufacturing costs but are difficult to obtain given today’s high costs of producing these units in only limited quantities. From a competitive standpoint, Ristuccia observes that the bushings industry in North America has recently witnessed two major corporate changes as Siemens PTD has purchased the Trench Group while Lapp Insulators has divested itself of its bushings division which now operates under the name PCore Electric. While it is perhaps too early for him to judge how this might impact on the overall competitive environment for bushings, he does note that there are now pressures on pricing coming not from competitive
Photo: INMR ©
of different voltage classes within the standards as a means of increasing production efficiency for manufacturers. There would also be important benefits for users since a smaller variety of types would mean lower numbers of stocks of spares.
For the most part, dry type bushings with silicone housings have so far remained an object of interest only at trade shows.
67
I N M R
®
Q3 - 2004
