Menu
Commtest Instruments based in Christchurch and now part of GE Measurement & Control, is a global leader in the development and production of vibration analysis and monitoring instruments.
Vibration analysis detects early precursors to failure, allowing machinery repair or replacement before expensive failures occur.
Commtest’s China journey began in early 2002 when we were contacted by Tim Chang of BPdM in Beijing who claimed to be an expert in the field of vibration analysis, and wanted to purchase one of our vbSeries™ instruments for evaluation purposes, and to potentially resell.
After investigating Mr Chang’s industry connections, which proved very sound, a one-off sale was made, and frankly we never expected to hear from Mr Chang again. But to our surprise, he ordered more, and paid for more.
So much so that an in-person visit was justified to learn what his secret to success was.
Commtest’s General Manager was soon on a plane for his first ever trip to China to meet Mr Chang who proved to be a gracious host and both technically and commercially astute. Realising that China was not a market you simply “exported to” but instead must immerse oneself in, the Commtest General Manager began spending considerable time in market, up to 50% of his time in any given year.
And this intense focus and personal commitment paid off exponentially.
China quickly grew to become Commtest’s third most important market, following behind the USA and Australia respectively, and yet on a pro-rata basis, China was by far the most profitable region. We targeted large industrial State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) as our first customers, in industries including power generation, water supply and waste-water treatment, and coal mining.
Upon this foundation of success, a key decision was made to establish a dedicated and permanent in-market presence in China with a team comprising 100% local staff. The Commtest Rep Office in Beijing was officially opened on 1 June 2007, and with the heightened brand strength and in-market presence, sales continued to climb in in triple digit percentages year after year.
In exploring industries that were benefitting from large scale government backing, we ‘doubled down’ on the Wind Energy market from 2007 onward. At that time, no other country was installing Wind Turbines at a faster rate than China. Wind turbine reliability, or more correctly, lack of reliability, was a thorn in the side of many operators, who were investing millions of dollars per turbine just to have them sit idle awaiting expensive repairs.
So Commtest found ourselves working within a a perfect storm of both technical and economic pressure to provide real-time performance feedback on large scale wind “farms” where 100s of turbines could be operating at any given time.
Commtest rose to the occasion with a browser-based dashboard viewing platform named “Vantagepoint™” which gave operational managers of large wind farms instant and real-time graphical view of the operating “health” of each wind turbine under their care.
While many Wind Energy customers adored this, some original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), were not so happy as we were exposing their machine faults, from which, some were making vast fortunes in after-warranty repair revenue. Ultimately this brought us to the attention of General Electric, specifically GE Energy, at the time the Number 1 global Wind Turbine manufacturer and brand leader, who approached Commtest on the potential for establishing a Joint Venture.
Over time it became clear to both sides that an outright acquisition of Commtest made the most sense and this was completed in August 2011 with the company subsequently integrated into similar business units inside GE’s then massive Energy division. Today Commtest lives on as a product brand inside the Bently-Nevada business, a Baker Hughes company, of which GE remains a minority shareholder.
Learn more about Commtest Instruments here.