By Jeff Nagel
Vice President
Global Services

Global Services is responsible for maintaining, servicing, upgrading and monitoring all installed GE Oil & Gas equipment. We keep your assets running at their peak, injecting new technologies to improve performance beyond the standard. Everything we do is based on continually improving our quality & speed, expertise, and innovation… and delivering it all closer to you.

Quality & Speed

Quality & Speed are paramount in this industry – and one means nothing without the other. At the heart of a Quality & Speed culture is Lean Six Sigma. Already initiated at our plants in Florence, Oshkosh and Houston, we are now rolling it out to Service Centers in every region of the world to ensure that key processes are better, faster and always improving. As a result of this initiative, we have reduced standard repair lead time in our workshops by 30% in 2007 and reduced the time to issue routine spare quotes to one day. We are expanding our Quality & Speed efforts significantly in 2008 to drive further improvement in a range of areas from quoting to installation to on-time delivery.

Expertise

When customers buy our assets, they are literally buying the knowledge and experience of our people. So we search for the best candidates globally and give them extensive structured training so that every customer can rely on consistently high service expertise. Our Field Engineers now progress through an intense three-tier program, starting with two years of Entry Level training and testing, then progressing later in their careers to Senior Level and ultimately, Master Level certification for our most advanced specialists.

We also provide a number of training opportunities for our customers’ personnel, including: the Certified Operator Rotating Equipment (CORE) program; a Certificate in Oil & Gas technologies offering courses in Leadership, Energy Processes and Rotating Machinery; and customized programs based on specific customer needs.

Innovation

As operating conditions evolve and equipment ages, we know that you need more and more advanced solutions for your existing assets. The opportunity and the demand for upgrades is growing rapidly and we are working hard to develop technical solutions that keep our equipment at the leading edge of performance. Over the last year, we have increased our investment in technology development 3 fold and will again almost double it this year. We see tremendous opportunity to continue injecting advanced technology into the installed fleet.
We now have a portfolio of practical solutions that give customers improved production, efficiency, reliability, availability, and lower emissions. Our new Power Crystal upgrade kit significantly extends Mean Time Between Maintenance for Frame 5 gas turbines or, with higher firing temperatures, increases output by 4% in the Fr5D and 6% in the Fr5C. Our AN200+ upgrade puts the inner bundle of an AN250 into an AN200, increasing flow by 14% and weight flow from 375 kg/sec to 420 kg/s – all with no change in casing. Our modular PGT10 Green Upgrade offers an impressive NOx reduction down to 15 ppm @ 15% O2 and eliminates steam injection. These are just three examples from a year full of impressive innovations. Our take on technological development is continuous, forward reaching and always rooted in our customers’ needs.

Closer to you

Florence remains our headquarters, but over the past 18 months, we’ve worked to decentralize more decision-making responsibility, invest more in worldwide facilities than ever before and aggressively hire more local talent so that work can be done in-country by local nationals. This has improved our service response times, strengthened customer relationships and benefited local economies through increased investment and employment opportunities.

We’ve upgraded many of our Service Centers and continue building more. Construction of our new 3,810 m2 facility in Qatar is on schedule for equipment installation and commissioning in the second quarter of 2008. We are also working with our joint venture partners Sonatrach and Sonelgaz to enhance service capacity in Algeria with a new 4,560 m2 workshop and additional office space in Algiers. Further developments are planned globally for the near future.

Looking forward

As the oil and gas industry continues to evolve, so do the challenges of providing outstanding service everywhere in the world. We believe that a continued focus on quality, speed, expertise and innovation – all delivered closer to our customers – will provide long term value. Our goal is to earn your business by delivering the best service in the oil and gas industry and helping you continually improve the performance of your assets.