Voith has announced that it has secured a location in Houston for use as a customer service center for the turbomachinery market. The 32,000-square-foot site is expected to open in January 2019. The new facility allows Voith to provide its customers with a variety of OEM services including repairs, retrofitting and overhaul service for a number of Voith products including industrial and high speed gearboxes, Vorecons, torque converters and fluid couplings. Voith’s team of highly skilled technicians will perform repairs, retrofits and overhauls to non-Voith products as well. Further, the full speed part load test stand for Voith’s serviced equipment allows all production updates to be thoroughly tested and validated before their return to the field. 

“The new Houston service facility will be our center of competence for all repair, retrofit and service of industrial and high speed gearboxes,” said Shawn Calhoun, senior vice president CMO Americas, Voith Turbo Inc. “This is derived from the fact that Voith will be offering a new level of expertise in North America with gearbox maintenance, repair, service and retrofitting, as well as the ability to provide a mechanical performance test afterwards.”

The new location provides a number of industry benefits, most notably a local gearbox test stand and the ability for local customers to visit the workshop to review work being done for them. Other benefits include the opportunity for quicker project turnarounds, reduced transport needs and better customer communication. 

Located on West Sam Houston Parkway North, the workshop will host the Houston-based Voith team, including sales, project management, application engineering, design engineering, customer service and its expert field service team. The opening will create a number of new positions at Voith working out of the Houston facility.

Finding a Houston location that allows Voith to meet industry needs was especially important, Calhoun said. “Houston is the heart of the POG industry, and our customers expect to have local access to our services 24/7. They want local support and local expertise, and this new facility will provide that,” Calhoun said. “We’ll also be positioned to take on projects involving other OEMs, which is another very helpful option to the Houston area.”

The new facility joins Voith’s already existing workshop located in York, Pennsylvania, which, between it and Houston, provide the industry a broad range of options.