Xiang-Jian Zhang and Yun Lu, my colleagues from China, recently told me a story about their working life at Krones Lifecycle Service. An aseptic overhaul was due at the customer Vitasoy in Hong Kong. What happened there is better told by my colleagues who were on site – so here goes the original story:
2020 was destined to be an extraordinary year. A global pandemic has changed the world, but for the needs of our customers, our goal was to never interrupt or lower the standards despite the pandemic.
In October 2020 we received the business visa to Hong Kong from the government. Krones Taicang agreed with Vitasoy Hong Kong to carry out the aseptic line overhaul in Hong Kong in December 2020. Five experienced service engineers volunteered to travel to Hong Kong for this project. They were: Dai Zong-Xuan (filling technology), Zhou Yong-Ping (blowing technology), Hu De-Zhao (process technology), Qin Jing-Ru (Water specialist) and Zhuang Zhi-Guang (line electrician).
Five eager service technicians.
But then, just one week after the overhaul had started, one employee of Vitasoy was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19. So, Vitasoy started the internal pasteurizing of the whole plant immediately and processed a nucleic acid test for all contacts. Meanwhile, Krones China forwarded all the information as soon as they got it from Vitasoy. During the internal discussion, every service engineer was given the possibility to cancel the operation if he felt uncomfortable to continue working in Hong Kong. However, none of them requested to leave at this moment and all were willing to continue until project closure. Naturally, Krones also immediately arranged nucleic acid tests for all five service engineers.
High commitment of the service technicians
After three weeks of hard work onsite, the whole overhaul was finished successfully – and on time. Now all five service engineers have already returned to the Chinese mainland and started their quarantine in Shenzhen and Shanghai city. After 14 days of quarantine, they can travel back to their respective hometowns for the coming Chinese new year on February11th 2021.
Vitasoy headquarter sent their appreciation to Krones for this successful overhaul onsite in this critical time. As Mr. Johnny Wang, the plant production director said: “Krones is always the loyal partner of us. This has never changed, even in this critical COVID-19 time.” Last, but definitely not least a special thanks goes to our service engineers: staying away from the family for such a long time and accepting the quarantine isn’t something to be taken for granted. And they have made not only us, but also our customer proud in the process: “I present high appreciation to their families as well to their sacrifice to leave the family members for almost two months. Without their dedicated contribution, we couldn’t have had the overhaul completed which is a miracle in this specific situation.”
