Metso Outotec has held groundbreaking ceremony for the company’s biggest service centre globally, being built in Karratha, Western Australia.
The celebration took place one year after the initial announcement of the service centre to be built in Australia.
The new service centre is expected to be operational during the fourth quarter of 2023. It will offer comprehensive maintenance and repair services for aggregates and mining customers in the Pilbara and Gascoyne regions.
The new service centre’s planned lot size is expected to be over 35,000 square metres (m2) and will have a workshop of 5,000 m2 and a total of 18,000 m2 additional storage space.
The centre is located in one of the world’s largest mining regions, and offers increased productivity and shorter lead times as well as substantial environmental advantages due to shorter transportation journeys as senior vice president of professional services at Metso Outotec, Martin Karlsson, said.
The total investment value has been announced to be approximately $49 million, inclusive of the purchase of the land, assets, and construction of the service centre.
“This is a great day for Metso Outotec and our customers,” Karlsson said, “reaching this milestone means that the construction work on the site is proceeding after a thorough planning phase.”
“The service centre is an expansion to our footprint and an important strategic investment in supporting our customers. The strong operational support and leading process knowledge we provide, will help our customers to meet their targets.”
The centre will be equipped to repair and refurbish for example large mining crushers, grinding mills, screens, and car dumpers.
Additionally, it will act as a base for field services, hold inventory for customer critical wear and spare parts, as well as providing a customer training facility as Metso Outotec’s president for the Asia Pacific market area, Stuart Sneyd, noted.
“By investing in this state-of-the-art service centre, we are demonstrating our long-term commitment to the Pilbara Region and the communities there. We can offer shorter lead times, and environmentally efficient service and delivery capabilities,” Sneyd said.
The functionalities of the building have been carefully designed, and we are able to support our customers with a comprehensive service and repairs capability for all their needs,” he added.
The Pilbara centre is expected to provide long-term stable employment to skilled personnel from the local communities, including service engineers and experts.
Metso Outotec has today 140 service centres globally, over 3000 field services professionals, and additional support resources close to customer operations.