ZF is a global technology company supplying gear systems for vehicles and industrial technology. ZF Wind Power designs modular gearbox platforms and produces complete powertrains for wind turbines. Sivakumar Jayapal, Chief Service Officer at ZF Wind Power, talks with Windpower Engineering & Development about its new interactive service Thrive.

Below is an excerpt of ZF’s Wind Spotlight with Windpower Engineering & Development, but be sure to listen to the full episode here or on your favorite podcast app.

What is Thrive?

Thrive is ZF Wind Power’s new service brand, which we launched in 2022. As a global leader in the wind industry for the gearbox and powertrain, we aim to empower a sustainable future with our partners by our service offerings. Our unique service concept helps our wind park operators, consumers and customers to get the most from the wind power to generate limitless green energy. “Thrive” means to prosper, to be fortunate. We embody that definition to the power of our service. For us, service is not reactive, but rather being proactive. It is not only about maintaining and keeping the wind turbines alive, but about continuously optimizing to thrive and prosper.

What does Thrive’s tagline ‘For continuous availability’ mean?

With Thrive, we strive for continuous availability for our partners and their wind projects. Thanks to our customer-centric mindset, availability of the gearbox and the spare parts along with our global footprint, we can ensure the wind power continues to reach consumers 24/7 through the year.

How do you guarantee this availability?

Thrive offers a complete service package. We bundled everything together, including worldwide field support, workshop repairs in 90 days, global replacement pool, spare part management, and we also train our partners. All these are supported by our unique digitalization approach, a service powered by analytics. This includes different digital offerings like ZF’s customer dashboard, intelligent powertrain, spare part optimization. We also work as partners with our customers and tailor our offerings to their preference. That’s key because it’s not that they have to get the full package. There is no standard or a fixed approach. We always develop a personalized package together with our partners, which suits their business model, they have a choice to select in any six of our offerings.

What is the gearbox pool and how does it work?

Thrive offers an international pool for its partners. This gearbox pool contains new and refurbished gearboxes from all major brands and multiple turbine models. Using the digital Thrive platform, customers can go into zfthrive.com and order a gearbox of their choice, which will be shipped within five days. The gearbox pool provides many opportunities for our partners such as low personal stock, less downtime and replacement gearboxes when a gearbox needs service.

This podcast is sponsored by ZF Wind Power.

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