Finnlines RoRo Fleet Maintenance Agreement
The Grimaldi Group is proceeding with plans to outsource its maintenance responsibilities by signing a new all inclusive MacGregor Onboard Care agreement with Cargotec that covers RoRo equipment onboard 16 vessels in Finnlines fleet. This latest three-year agreement was signed at the beginning of June in Helsinki, Finland and includes an option for a further two-year extension.
Initially, the contract takes full responsibility for all the RoRo access equipment onboard a total of eleven vessels, owned by leading Baltic Sea operator, Finnlines Plc, which is a part of the Grimaldi Group. This figure will increase to sixteen from the beginning of 2011. Grimaldi Group corporate Purchasing Director Giancarlo Coletta (fourth left): “This agreement is another milestone in our plan to extend planned maintenance contracts to all our vessels in order to assure to our customers the highest reliability and availability of RoRo equipment. At the same time, it also demonstrates the fruitful partnership that Grimaldi Group has had with MacGregor, and now with Cargotec, over the past several decades.”
The Finnlines’ vessels trade mainly in the Baltic Sea and will be served by Cargotec’s German, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Belgian and Spanish services branches. “The fact that we have a global network of professionals at our customers’ service was a crucial success factor in the negotiations”, explains Timo Nordlin (second right), Cargotec Marine’s Branch Manager in Finland. “Our capability to serve the Finnlines’ fleet wherever they are, together with the fact that critical equipment components are stored in our logistic centre in Hamburg, Germany, played a big role in expanding the existing agreement to an all inclusive contract. We also worked closely with our Life Cycle Services and Spares & Technical Services teams when we planned this offer to make sure that we could meet the needs of this agreement.”
Earlier this year, Cargotec announced that it had secured two new high-level MacGregor Onboard Care contracts. One was a continuation of a three-year agreement with the Grimaldi Group. This contract was signed at the end of 2009 for a total of 27 vessels and includes an option for a further two-year extension. The other contract, signed in January 2010, covers any service issues onboard nine vessels that are owned by Grimaldi Group subsidiary, Atlantic Container Lines (ACL), and are managed by ACL Ship Management (ASM).
Cargotec’s MacGregor Onboard Care service concept offers customers sustainable ship operations and revenue earning capabilities by ensuring the operative availability of equipment through planned maintenance. Today, more than 430 vessels are protected by a MacGregor Onboard Care agreement that takes care of hatch covers, cranes, RoRo equipment, offshore devices, bulk self unloaders and linkspans.