Alex Gall - After Sales Manager, ARBURG Ltd.

After 14-years with ARBURG Ltd., Alex Gall knows a thing or two about injection moulding, ARBURG and all its technologies. Following 12-years on the road as a senior service engineer, in 2023 he shadowed former service manager Robin Hambrook for 11 months, who retired in 2024 after an exceptional 45-years’ service. At the time Alex was the most experienced engineer in the company.

He has modified the After Sales Manager role, which now covers service, spares, health and safety, quality, personnel and building management, plus anything linked to after sales. He manages a team of 14 staff directly and supervises the company’s quality management system, ISO9001.

Some changes were needed. “The company has been run well with many good people who have been here a very long time, who work in the “ARBURG way”, but maybe we needed to look at ways to modernise,” Alex says. “I've tried to change a few things in this role, several of which are technology focused. We now have far more digital products, such as ARBURG Remote Service (ARS) that allow remote access support for machines. Office communication has moved to MS Teams from handheld phones, a change that sounds simple but is hard when people have used a system for so long. This is how we need to work. Ultimately the business is customer-driven, and our aim is to provide the best customer service possible for all our customers.”

ARBURG Ltd. now has eight service engineers and two apprentices, up from five when Alex joined in 2011.  ARBURG invests heavily in training, and Alex has recently overseen additional training on electric machines, where one third of machine sales are electric – and this is rising.

Since January the company has put five external engineers through three weeks of training on all the electric drive technology. Marco Dölker, an electric machine specialist, joined from Germany to deliver this. Following this training, three external service engineers were sent to Germany for over five weeks for electric machine training. ARBURG Ltd.’s two apprentices are also in Germany for three months for initial training, ready for their apprenticeship completion later this year. “This is to help us get ahead of service demands. By the end of March we will have six engineers with electric training.”

Alex’s aim is to have all eight engineers trained on all the drive technologies, with one surplus engineer for urgent callouts. In the past, emergency response has been a challenge because all the service team were committed. “We will be able to aim for 24-48 hours support soon, and we will be in the best position for service engineer capacity in the 14-years I’ve been here.”

The training regime at ARBURG is impressive. Engineers from all subsidiaries now spend seven months in Germany training in their first three to five years. “There is so much training you have to balance it with work and life demands here,” he says.

While servo-driven hydraulic machines are energy-efficient, electric machines are more popular and it will only continue to grow, Alex believes. Sustainability is driving this – despite the recent green roll-back from the United States – customers really want to cut energy, carbon and waste, and ensure their processes meet environmental standards.

“All our range of machines can offer ways to improve the customer’s energy efficiency, but electric machines are what more customers are seeking. They offer not only energy efficiency, but precise high speed performance.  All energy saving machines are dependent on the customer’s application, and our sales engineers, with the support of our technical departments can find the best solution for the customer. ”

Up until even last year, many customers with a serious and costly repair would replace the machine with a new one. Owing to factors including an uncertain economy, more mould shops are electing to repair and upgrade the machine instead. “Customers are asking how they can prevent their current machine fleet from failing. This is driving preventative maintenance, such as the use of ARS (ARBURG Remote Service) and calibration services to give it a longer productive life.” The ARBURG service contracts and calibration contracts arm, run by Stephen Redman-Windsor, has only increased over time, and there is still a big market for here to do more, Alex says.

“That's my aim, once we have the capacity,” he says. “I am a big believer in selling something that you believe in, where you know that you can deliver the demand. I know we will be able to deliver the right service going forward, and that's why we have a much bigger push on service this year than maybe we have in the past.”

Alex is a father to four girls – so home life is, let’s say, quite busy. He is also a lifelong supporter of Glasgow Rangers which comes from his father’s side of the family.  “My dad and I go to about half the home games and I’ve taken my two older girls a few times. At the moment work, my girls and football are what life is all about.”