KHS is enhancing its customer service in Africa through co-operation with the international Portuguese AMAL Group, the Germany-based manufacturer of filling and packaging systems announced on 6 March.
KHS and AMAL service engineers will now provide joint assistance such as servicing, maintenance and overhaul to customers in Africa’s beverage industry, starting in Angola.
In structurally weak regions where customers are hard to reach KHS supplements its worldwide service network with partnerships, said Markus Knabe, head of KHS’s Central Corporate Project Management division.
“By also using the service networks of select partners we can quickly and efficiently strengthen our proximity to the customer,” he said. “This gives our customers an even higher line availability and also boosts their competitiveness.”
Based in the Angolan capital Luanda, along with one of its subsidiaries, the AMAL Group has several production sites and service centres in the African continent and employs about 350 service engineers.
Under the terms of the company’s cooperation agreement with KHS, designated AMAL engineers complete an extensive, KHS-specific training course so they can be quickly assigned for customer service and become familiar with the specific situation on site.
As time can be crucial when providing services to the industry, the ongoing blanket expansion of services is aimed at further securing line availability in the production process. In the medium term KHS’s service cooperation deal with AMAL is therefore going to be extended to cover other African states.