Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 44 | Page 78

t cht lk

t cht lk

David Skeans , Director of International
Sales , Starline
different voltages , different frequencies , or sometimes special safety requirements .
That has caused us to do a lot of innovation work and provide products that meet multiple certification needs . There are also requirements in many of the local markets such as China or India and Mexico .
We offer a product that can be used for all global markets and that really simplifies the application and allows our customers to have a single product that works for their global footprint .
How does Starline support the global data centre market with the XCP and distribution busbars ?
Our support is a major part of our business and investment . Customers want us to handle all aspects of projects so we ’ re providing both the product and services , which are vast . They require a lot of input and close communication with our customers , both pre- and post-sales . And we have a full staff of people with lots of unique talents to support those customers .
Can you explain more about what type of global support Starline offers ?
It really starts with pre-sales where the teams are heavily involved in configuration and application . Our sales staff generally have engineering backgrounds or technical training , so they understand our products – physically and also electrically .
They work in conjunction with regional application engineers to provide the best configuration for the space that the customer is looking to power .
Configuration would typically explore how you might line up the busbars , configuring the tap off units , the interconnection between the high power busbar and the low power busbar and integration in connection to UPS or switchboards .
Once the pre-sales configuration is done , we have an agreed-upon bill of material and we work with our product engineering and manufacturing teams to make sure we ’ re covering all the unique aspects of a particular project .
This involves creating AutoCAD drawings that are used in production and also communicated out to the customer for their use and design , before being transferred to the project management team .
The project management team then works at the site and continues to engage with the application engineers . There is also operational support and a whole commercial team that handles contracts , contract execution , logistics and so on .
How has Legrand supported your global support capabilities ?
We were acquired a couple of years ago by Legrand , a global leader in electrical product manufacturing with a global footprint and resources all over the world , which has been particularly helpful in those markets where we ’ re not normally involved .
Legrand is also very helpful in supplying components . Our busbar products use quite a few electrical components and circuit breakers to connectors and meters , and having access to design teams and manufacturing resources and factories means Legrand has been a tremendous asset to both us and our customers .
Project management is a key component of any build project . What does Starline offer as far as services to support the success of a project ?
We really focus on customer satisfaction . We take all aspects of the project seriously and make sure we are supporting properly .
Again , this starts with pre-sales . Most of our project management is involved in the pre-sale activities for large projects , so they ’ re familiar with the special needs of that particular project .
It then goes into manufacturing support , making sure we are meeting the schedules by doing everything we can to get the product to the location when needed , co-ordinating with the site and making sure we understand the unique site logistics , whether it be service elevator access , crane access or coordinating with site personnel and scheduling .
Then we are also heavily engaged in commissioning support , providing products to assist in commissioning , providing commissioning data review or , in some cases , providing commissioning services themselves .
We then have installation , so if a customer chooses to use Starline installation services we have a full team available for that and if they choose to use a local resource then we have training available to make sure that the local resource understands how to install .
Along with that goes operational support . Once the product is installed and commissioned , the operational support is to make sure that customers are
78 INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE www . intelligentcio . com