Interview with Wilfried Breuer,
the Managing Director at Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen
The depth of the knowledge and the personal commitment of MR employees to the product and the company, and their willingness to go the extra mile is exceptional. And it’s passionate.
With great pleasure, Transformer Technology is presenting the first part of an inspiring interview with Wilfried Breuer, the Managing Director at Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen (MR). Wilfred joined MR in April of 2019. Prior to that, he had extensive experience in the transmission and distribution world, including working for Siemens in Thailand and several other countries. Prior to MR he was with TenneT Holdings in the Netherlands, where he served on the executive leadership team.
Alan Ross
Wilfried, welcome and thank you for joining me on this interview.
Wilfried Breuer
It’s my great pleasure, Alan.
AR
You have an incredible background in technology, especially in the transmission world. When you were asked to join MR, obviously they knew you well and they had an idea of what they were getting. You had an idea of why you would want to take on the role of Managing Director of MR because the company has an incredible pedigree for quality and customer satisfaction, being the dominant player in many parts of the industry they play in. But when you were asked to do that role, what were you trying to accomplish?
WB
I would like to give a couple of two points to answer that. One is going way back in my career, when I started to work as a commissioning engineer. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, during some activities I performed at Cahora Bassa, Mozambique, I was introduced to tap changers. I remember the tap changer was something that we were never allowed to touch, even as a senior commissioning engineer, because it was the Holy Grail of the famous MR. In my very early years, I got to interact with it as a special interest of mine. Anything that is special to an engineer, you always keep it as a special interest, so it was always somewhere on the back of my mind.
In the years that followed, and as my career matured, I took a direction into management and leadership. Transformers, as well as tap changers, were always a key part of what I was responsible for in the HVDC business in Siemens. Converter transformers are a key element, if not the most valuable component, of an HVDC system. Likewise, as I moved to TenneT, transformers played one of the crucial roles in connecting offshore wind power to the grid.
When the opportunity to join MR arose, all those memories of tap changers and transformers returned. Joining MR and realizing that now it was my time to “go into the black box” which I had been learning about so early in my career, I must say that was amazing. It’s also amazing how much innovative potential is still there once you are inside the company and its expertise.
Another important element for me is that I worked in a variety of business models. When I worked with Siemens, which is a large multinational and public-listed company, I had a great pleasure to work literally world-wide: in Africa, in Southeast Asia, and with many different companies. In China, we did the first ±800 KV HVDC installation there and accomplished great things with Chinese utilities. We also dealt with a lot of issues around transformers.
Then I worked for TenneT, which is a Dutch state-owned regulated utility, and very much between the energy transition, political ambitions and reality of Ohm's law.
And now I work with MR, which is a family-owned, very traditional more than 150-year-old business. I must say, I don't know a manager who had the pleasure of working in all three, quite different governance models: family-owned, mid-size, and global companies that are state owned and regulated, and multinational publicly listed.
This was something I only recognized after I signed the contract with MR. Once I did, I really enjoyed it. If you had asked me then what my ambition was, it was to go back to a more technology-centered role, which for me, as an engineer, is more exciting than a grid operator role. With technology driven roles, you are really an inventor, you produce products, type test them, bring them into the market, and you work with customers – that's a different edge. It’s entrepreneurial. This is something I learned in my early days and started to miss it throughout my career, so I used the opportunity to go back into the technology area and the opportunity to join MR was highly attractive. I haven't regretted it for a minute.
In my professional career, I’ve had the pleasure of working in all three, quite different business governance models: family-owned, mid-size, and global state-owned and regulated, multinational publicly listed companies. I don't know many managers who’ve had the same opportunity.
AR
I have never heard anyone relate political reality with Ohm’s Law. That's very good. You mentioned the Holy Grail. The Reinhausen company is well known for its culture of excellence and culture of quality, and the load changers are unique in transformers, and they are the Holy Grail. Talk a little bit about that culture. It's been there. It's not that you are bringing a new culture to MR, but tell us a little bit about what you found as you joined the company and the culture, what makes it so excellent?
WB
Yes, clearly the depth of the knowledge and the personal commitment of most employees to the product and the company and the willingness to go the extra mile is exceptional. It was high at TenneT; it was high at Siemens. I wouldn't like to put anyone second, but it's still quite exceptional and passionate at MR. If you ask me what makes it exceptional, it is almost a bit religious. For example, what impressed me is that the demand for tap changers is not continuous and we are not a huge company. We have around 4,000 employees, but still we manage to cope with the fluctuating demand for tap changers very well, almost completely without using external/part-time or hired labor.
We have a very high flexibility within our own workforce to adjust to whatever output is needed to fulfil the expectation of the customers. It is not difficult for us to work extra shifts if it is necessary for the market. It is almost a given and that is unique because there is an understanding that everything is paid by the customers who voluntarily decide to use and buy our products or services. They will only do that because we satisfy their basic needs and their expectations, and this is what uniquely unites the company. It makes us feel like a soccer team that has learned to play soccer.
With technology driven roles, you are really an inventor; you produce products, type test them, bring them into the market, and you work with customers – that's a different edge. It’s entrepreneurial.
AR
Well said, you can put a lot of good players on the soccer field, but they still don't play a good match if they don’t play like a team and they haven't practiced. When you joined MR, you obviously felt that they were a well working and managed team. Each and every one is a global star player. Not only are the Ronaldos there, but they play the game for a long time with a high dedication on customer focus, on technology understanding and on product quality. I love the analogy to soccer/football, the fact that it's not always the best players when it's the best team.
I know that most people in our industry know that product quality is a dominant culture at MR. You make it your “purpose” to make excellent products. I also know that, especially in North America, you've added a large service arm of the company and your service business is growing. How do you maintain that same purpose in manufacturing as you grow your service business within MR?
WB
That's a very good question and point. It starts, as many things do in MR, with the tap changer itself, which is the core of the service business of MR. Very special things on the tap changer have to be serviced by a tap changer knowledgeable and trained person. In the past, MR only performed the service because it was expected and requested by the customer, not as a profit centre.
The tap changer is the core of the service business of MR and doing service on our own tap changes is something that we are unique for in the industry. But our technicians can do more than just the tap changer because somebody who understands the tap changer also understands the rest of the transformer.
Then we realized that we should be the ones servicing our own products to ensure the quality and long service life. Doing service on our tap changes is something that we are unique for in the industry because no customer, even the highest quality-focused customers, will pay two technicians to work on that changer. Our service techs work typically alone. The customer shows them the transformer, the unit is grounded and switched off from high voltage and then they get the work permit and basically, they are left alone with the job. They are trained in a very unique way as a premium service provider. They must have expertise in the different models of the MR tap changers, including the vintage models, which they must renew every couple of years.
They must do a practical and theoretical test and prove that they are still capable to do the job. We train them traditionally to take care, by themselves, of the quality because there is no second technician to say, Did you tighten that screw? Did you lose a screw in the tap changer and close your eyes to it because nobody will know about it, because nobody saw it? The technicians are exceptionally trained to do the job alone. If I made a comparison not using soccer this time, I would say, if you were to fly passenger planes with a single pilot, that's the way we train the people.
Now we also use the same pedigree for doing more on the transformer. We say, once our guy is there who understands the tap changer, he can do more than just the tap changer. Somebody who understands the tap changer also understands the rest of the transformer and he can do a lot of additional things. I know that from working at TenneT, that staffing is more and more constrained at the utilities. They have to do more and more work with less people.
It is a tendency, not only at TenneT, that if they can get one service provider who does more than just a special job, they appreciate that they are not forced due to the lack of own manpower to bundle work. That is exactly where we jump in and that carries a lot of weight for the U.S. market, which is a lot more profit-orientated on the grid operator side. That is our focus coming from the tap changer: doing more running oil rigs and oil treatment because the guys who understand the tap changer understand the transformer as a whole.
AR
The first time that I saw Reinhausen going beyond the Reinhausen tap changer was with a friend of mine who worked at a substation area and MR was working on other companies’ tap changers. I asked him about it and he said, Well they are cross trained to be able to handle anybody's tap changer. Now the fact that you work on the entire transformer answers the question, why bring in two crews when you can do it with one? You have tremendous growth in North America. You've always been the leader here in the manufacturing end of it and now you've got tremendous growth in the service end of it. My assumption is you've now started in the market. Where do you go from here? What do you think you want the marketplace to know about MR services in North America?
WB
Our mission there is very clear. I think we are the number one when it comes to the service of tap changers, not only those manufactured by MR, but of course mostly driven by our large market share of tap changes in the U.S. market, that makes us automatically the number one for specialized service if it's more than just changing the oil and cleaning it a bit. From there, we also want to be the number one when it comes to higher level transformer service. We are not going to aim to be the market leader for washing, radiators or changing the paint. I think that is something where we will also rely on subcontractors.
We are number one in servicing tap changers, not only the tap changers manufactured by MR, and our goal is to be number in providing higher level transformer service, and that is transformer health and condition assessment.
But when it comes to condition assessment, we have developed great algorithms with Fleet Scan 2D and our TESSA Asset Performance Management, which is just being launched, that take care of data analytics which is where we want to be – the first well known practitioner when it comes to transformer health. We want to be the quality-driven transformer experts, as we are known for our tap changers, so that our customers are not under pressure when selling a new transformer, trying to be credible.
That's our pedigree and it is not a hard job internally driving it there, but it is of course a hard job when it comes to transformer service. You are more exposed to competition. There are more people with similar knowledge, so it is driving us a bit out of our comfort zone in the shadow of the tap changer.
AR
That is interesting, because when you go from just the tap changer into the whole transformer, you are still in the maintenance service area. Once you start getting into data management and you get into health management, now you move into the data, the digital area and that's going to be a challenge. But it is also a huge opportunity because of the pedigree of MR. If as a customer you believe the MR pedigree works for manufacturing and now you see it working for service and maintenance, then you can assume that they are going to bring the same quality into the data management and health management of a transformer, and that’s where the future is. As a passionate power reliability guy, I realize that you must have data in order to determine what to do from a service standpoint. That is the exponential growth area within North America.
The tap changer is the core of the service business of MR and doing service on our own tap changes is something that we are unique for in the industry. But our technicians can do more than just the tap changer because somebody who understands the tap changer also understands the rest of the transformer.