86 ALUMINIUM · 1-2/2015

A L U M I N I U M S M E L T I N G I N D U S T R Y

86 ALUMINIUM · 1-2/2015 ALUMINIUM · 1-2/2015 87

S P E C I A L

Fives – the Services way of lifeJ.-B. Robin, V. Vérin, M. Coulon and R. Beuret, Fives Solios

As an industrial engineering group, Fives is known for its technological expertise and competence in executing internation-al projects. Within the group, the alumin-ium business line is specialized in design-ing and supplying process equipment and turnkey plants in the three sectors of the aluminium industry: carbon, casthouse and reduction.

As a business partner, Fives is committed to fully assist and proactively help its clients to maximize the performance of their industrial

plants during operation. This is how Fives pro-vides pioneering, valuable and high-quality services solutions so as to help its customers operating, optimizing and evolving improve-ment to their plants and equipment.

Since the early 2000s, proximity with Fives’ main customers in the aluminium in-dustry has been made easier with the opening of three subsidiaries in South Africa, Bahrain and China. Relying on head offices in France, UK and Canada, as well as other group’s subsidiaries in India, Russia and China, most smelters in the world can be easily reached.

Today, subsidiaries in Bahrain and South Af-rica are dedicated solely to service activities. They can therefore provide technical support to customers in their geographical area, as well as after-sales service and technical assist-ance offers, with a high reactivity to daily and specific requests.

Over the past fifty years, Fives has been supplying turnkey treatment plants both in the reduction and carbon sectors. Most of these plants were Gas Treatment Centres (GTCs) dedicated to the treatment of gases emitted by electrolysis pots, Fume Treatment Centres

86 ALUMINIUM · 1-2/201586 ALUMINIUM · 1-2/2015 ALUMINIUM · 1-2/2015 87

S P E C I A L A L U M I N I U M S M E L T I N G I N D U S T R Y

(FTCs) for the treatment of anode-baking fur-nace fumes, and Pitch Fume Treatment Sys-tems (PFTSs) dedicated to pitch fumes capture (including PAHs) in carbon plants. As part of the aluminium specialty of Fives, the company delivering such plants was formerly known as Procédair and Solios Environnement, before becoming Fives Solios SA on 1 January 2015.

Solios Environnement reinforced its servi- ces offer in 2008 by creating a Technical As-sistance team to provide support to the com-pany’s customers and subsidiaries. The team is composed of several experienced engineers and technicians, both process and field ex- perts. They have often been involved in con-struction and / or plant commissioning phases, and have accumulated an extensive know- ledge of Fives’ installations. One of their pri-mary missions consists of assisting customers after the handover phase, once commissioning and performance tests have been performed.

Over the past ten years, Fives has been supplying GTCs, FTCs and PFTSs for Sohar in Oman, for Qatalum in Qatar, for Vedanta and Hindalco in India, for Ma’aden Alcoa JV in Saudi Arabia and RTA in Canada. In order to maximize these treatment plants’ efficiency and productivity, Fives offers to support cus-tomers in assessing various services options.

Tailor-made expertise, adapted to customers’ needs

From occasional audits to full-time assistance, Fives provides an exhaustive range of servi- ces dedicated to its treatment plants and fo-cused on customers’ expectations and plant requirements. A typical audit is carried out by

a team of two experts, and it lasts between two days and one week, depending on the audit scope. An audit aims to review process param-eters and to carry out inspections to evaluate condition of the plant. It can focus on specific matters, e.g. optimization of the airflow net-work, assessment of the condition of specific pieces of equipment, etc., or it can review the overall condition of a plant. The inspection is followed by a comprehensive report which re-caps all observations made by the auditors. It also suggests repairs, good practices or process optimization perspectives, while indicating priorities for each of the proposed actions.

Audits can also be performed in prepara-tion for an upcoming change, such as an in-crease in pot amperage which would require specific technical adjustments, e.g. addition of gas cooling systems, etc. In such cases, Fives’ experts will assess all the anticipated configu-rations and will suggest recommendations based on feasibility, Capex, Opex and main-tenance criteria.

Moreover, as plant performance also relies on the operators’ process know-how and on optimal maintenance, Fives provides group training, designed both for recently hired op-erators and for experienced staff members willing to refresh their skills. As many plants face an important staff turnover, providing regular training is a good way to maintain a satisfactory level of knowledge among the operators. Training takes place both in the classroom and on site, and can focus either on process knowledge or on maintenance opera-tions, or may even combine both topics.

Long-term support is also possible, with the detachment of one or several specialists

on site to perform continuous process moni-toring or to provide assistance in the daily operation of the plant.

In this context, Fives has developed its range of services even further by providing tailor-made packages (including spare parts, maintenance, trainings, yearly audits and long-term assistance) for a comprehensive customer assistance.

As of today, Fives makes customer support one of its top priorities, both for plants’ daily operation and for whenever important struc-tural modifications are being contemplated. Indeed, Fives makes the most out of these experiences alongside its customers, and uses them as an input to improve its own products, in order to maintain a leading position in the market.

To meet its objectives to deliver effective solutions, Fives is convinced that all these forms of collaboration foster proximity and mutual trust with the company’s customers, and so will help in meeting customers’ expec-tations in terms of reliability, performance, maintenance needs, continuous improve- ment, and cost optimization.

Authors

Jean-Baptiste Robin is technical assistance manager and filtering product manager of Fives Services Gulf SPC in Bahrain.Vincent Vérin is process engineer.Mathieu Coulon is technical assistance engineer.Romain Beuret is aeraulics product manager. The three authors are with Fives Solios SA, Cus-tomer Services Department, based in St. Germain en Laye, France.

Over the past ten years, Fives has been supplying a number of GTCs, FTCs and PFTSs for aluminium companies in the Gulf and Middle East

© F

ives

Sol

ios