INTERVIEW
Getting air
Hemel Hempstead-based company Atlas Copco celebrated a century of UK
operations in November. A few months on – and during the UK lockdown over
Coronavirus – OE spoke to Alexander Pavlov, general manager at Atlas Copco
Compressors UK & Ireland, to find out what the compressors division has
planned over the next 100 years
T he Atlas Copco Group
marked a century of UK
operations in November
last year with a celebratory
event at The Shard in London
(www.is.gd/ajatoq). Guests and the media
heard how the UK was Atlas Copco’s first
successful overseas expansion from its
native Sweden with a single sales office
established to sell diesel engines at the
end of World War I.
Fast forward 100 years and Atlas Copco
UK has now grown to become a large
organisation that employs more than
2,500 people at six production centres
and 15 sales offices across the UK. It
has also expanded through acquisitions,
including the purchase of UK-based
vacuum and greenhouse gas abatement
products Edwards Group in 2014 (www.
is.gd/ahuten).
Today, its UK and Ireland compressors
division is headed by Alexander Pavlov
(pictured), who graduated as a software
engineer from St. Petersburg Marine
Technical University. He joined Atlas
Copco Compressors in Antwerp in 2003
and has held a variety of roles throughout
his Atlas Copco career, including
information systems project manager and
product marketing manager. Between
2011 and 2015, Pavlov also worked as
regional business line manager for South
East Europe, followed by an assignment as
country manager in Ireland, before taking
on his current role in 2017.
Operations Engineer caught up with
Pavlov via video chat during the UK
lockdown over Coronavirus to talk about
the company and the next 100 years.
Q Congratulations to the Atlas Copco
group for celebrating 100 years of
UK operations. Why do you think the
company and the compressors division
A have been so successful in the UK? Atlas Copco, from the very beginning,
had a diversified model; a sort
of speciality in compressors because
compressed air is required in every
industry. It’s a product; if you look around
yourself now everything is made with air
and that has supported us through the
decades. The second aspect is around
being international. Atlas Copco decided
to expand very early, firstly in Europe and
then globally, and much earlier than many
other companies.
Having a presence in all the industries
provides balance and makes sure the
business grows all of the time. Some
industries may be down now but at
the same time others, such as microelectronics
and semi-conductors, are
booming, and all those things balance
each other out. The same can be said
about international presence.
Q You have now been a part of the
Atlas Copco group for 17 years.
How has the company developed in that
time?
A The major change is the
development of the remote
monitoring of equipment. Today we
have approximately 3,700 compressors
in the UK that are connected. It allows
us to monitor remotely, plan services
and prevent breakdowns, and we get
notifications when things are not going
right. All of the new units from the
factory are now coming with built-in
communication. We can also retrofit some
of the older machines, so connectivity and
digitalisation have been the major change.
Q The centenary event also raised
some of the megatrends Atlas
Copco is exploring, such as digitalisation
and artificial intelligence (AI). How are
A they impacting the market? Our whole sales process is digital,
and of course we have our SmartLink
remote monitoring, which we are always
improving. I hope that we will be able to
log system performance soon, which we
do at the moment by installing loggers on
to the machine for a week and then collect
and analyse the data. That would change
the way our sales engineers work a lot
and make us more efficient because you
won’t need to travel to install/collect the
loggers.
AI is more around R&D and analysing
performance of machines in the field and
different atmospheric conditions. Units
are running all around the world, so you
analyse the same product in a very cold
and a very hot and humid climate, for
example. More and more algorithms are
taking place and being implemented to
identify certain trends and behaviours of
the machines based on all the data that
we collect. Then of course we are also
developing algorithms these days for the
sales leads, based on understanding and
logging how a compressor performs.
Q You often talk about compressed
air as being the fourth utility. Is it
taken seriously in wider UK industry?
By Adam Offord
26 www.operationsengineer.org.uk Autumn 2020
/ajatoq)
/www.operationsengineer.org.uk