When it comes to servicing industrial gear units, SEW-EURODRIVE isn’t simply growing its footprint; it’s setting new standards for reliability, responsiveness and regional support.
With dedicated service facilities in Mackay, Newcastle, Melbourne, Brisbane and the recently opened Wingfield site in Adelaide, the company has built a network designed around one goal: keeping industry moving.
“We’ve always been more than a product supplier,” SEW-EURODRIVE national industrial gears service manager Robert Justice said. “Our role is to guide and coordinate service at a national level, ensuring facilities across the country can meet growing demand and support customers well beyond installation.”
Each facility is equipped for heavy-duty work, with large workshop floor spaces, specialised tooling, including high lifting capacity, and significant stock availability. In Melbourne alone, SEW-EURODRIVE holds more than enough stock to allows for typical spare parts turnaround in just two or three days – faster than industry average.
At the core of SEW-EURODRIVE’s service philosophy is its commitment to real-world assurance.
“Load testing is a game-changer,” Justice said.
“You can spin-test a gearbox all day, but you won’t see critical issues like bearing failure until it’s under full load.
“For customers investing hundreds of thousands into drive assemblies for remote mining or manufacturing sites, this kind of assurance before dispatch is invaluable.”
The facilities in Wingfield, Mackay, and Newcastle are now equipped with state-of-the-art load testers, including a 1MW unit in Wingfield capable of simulating torque up to 500kNm. These capabilities help to ensure customers receive tested, certified and field-ready drive assemblies before installation.
A legacy of experience
Behind the equipment lies a service philosophy shaped by nearly a century of global experience. With operations in 56 countries and more than 22,000 employees, SEW-EURODRIVE draws on a worldwide knowledge base that allows local teams to solve problems quickly and effectively.
“Any seemingly new or complicated issue has probably been solved by an SEW team member somewhere in the world before,” Justice said.
The company’s expertise is particularly visible in industries where reliability is non-negotiable, such as mining and building materials production, where people and machinery face extreme environmental conditions.
Over the past decade, global demand for SEW’s industrial gear products has surged, and with it the need for dedicated service. Justice said part of the company’s recent expansion has been driven by an industry-wide service gap.
“We found many sites had legacy equipment from other manufacturers but limited access to reliable servicing,” he said. “So we applied the same level of support we offer our own products to third-party gearboxes.
“The market was ready for that kind of approach and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.”
SEW-EURODRIVE’s local presence is not about size alone; it’s about scale, longevity and frontline experience. The company’s investment in facilities, people and processes has allowed it to establish a complete service ecosystem that spans the lifecycle of industrial gear units – from design and assembly to installation, load testing, repair and predictive maintenance.
“The growth has been phenomenal, and it’s still just the beginning,” Justice said. “What makes me proudest, though, is the people; the development of our staff, growing our competencies, the culture of the service teams.
“The growth tells us we’re doing well, but it’s the human side that’s most rewarding.”
Few industries test the limits of equipment like mining does. From conveyors and crushers to reclaimers, sizers and apron feeders, SEW-EURODRIVE systems are deeply embedded in the everyday workings of Australian mine sites.
“A drive is not just a motor and a gearbox. It can also consist of brakes, fluid couplings, inverters, swing bases and torque arms, to name a few components,” SEW-EURODRIVE national industrial gears product manager Guido Wagner said.
“We could be supplying a drive for a greenfield or brownfield installation, whether we’re working with an OEM [original equipment manufacturer] to develop a new solution or installing a drop-in solution for existing plant or machinery.
“Either way, SEW-EURODRIVE is an expert in drive technology.”
The fact most of the company’s products are stocked and assembled locally means SEW-EURODRIVE can quickly prepare custom solutions for mining customers.
“We are in a unique position to supply almost any type of drive in the shortest possible timeframe,” Wagner said.
Excellence in collaboration
Speed, however, does not come at the expense of precision. Every SEW-EURODRIVE project begins with collaboration.
“A customer will come to us specifying what they’d like to achieve in their process, whether they want to boost efficiency or change speeds,” Wagner said. “They come to us with a requirement, and we design the drive to suit.”
SEW-EURODRIVE’s multidisciplinary engineering team plays a key role in that process.
“We have a large pool of engineers who are deeply familiar with our product range,” Wagner said. “Not only can we replace ageing drives with modern, more efficient solutions, but we can also improve performance in line with a mine’s operational goals.”
SEW-EURODRIVE’s motors exceed Australia’s IE2 efficiency regulations, offering options from IE3 to IE5, a reflection of the company’s focus on energy optimisation.
In today’s mining industry, where efficiency and uptime are paramount, the company is constantly exploring new approaches to optimise what Wagner calls “the heart of the plant”.
“Mining equipment is designed for, on average, a 25-year life,” he said. “And when equipment ages, the chance of failure increases.
“You can patch up your motor or gearbox or you can go for a replacement. With a replacement, you get the latest technology, new materials, and you reset your 25-year clock; the equipment operates like new again.”
By investing in modern drive solutions, mining operations can extend plant life, improve energy performance, and reduce maintenance downtime.
Wagner shared a recent example that demonstrates SEW-EURODRIVE’s problem-solving capability.
“We were approached to replace the travel drives for a bridge reclaimer at an Australian mine site,” he said.
“The original drives required mechanical clutches to switch between operating and positioning speeds. The clutch was constantly malfunctioning due to the harsh environment, and the drives were not synchronised, meaning the reclaimer suffered from crabbing.
“SEW-EURODRIVE replaced the complete drive with an industrial gearbox and inverter-driven servo motor, eliminating the clutch entirely. The new system offered higher repositioning speeds than the original and, eight years later, the bridge reclaimer has operated with zero downtime.”
As the company continues to push the boundaries of drive technology, SEW-EURODRIVE has been at the forefront of predictive maintenance through its DriveRadar solution.
“The future lies in predictive analytics, where data is continuously collected and used for a live prognosis of equipment performance,” Wagner said.
“Predictions consider all variables such as speed, temperature, operating frequency and loads, constantly adjusting when operating environments change. DriveRadar constantly recalculates component life based on real operating conditions, giving reliability engineers accurate notifications of potential future events.”
Keeping mining moving
In mining, downtime isn’t just an inconvenience – it’s incredibly costly. Every hour of lost production represents significant lost revenue.
By combining cutting-edge technology with an expanding national service network, SEW-EURODRIVE is helping operators take control of their drive systems’ performance, reliability, and lifecycle costs.
“The efficiency opportunities in mining are enormous, especially when it comes to optimising drive systems,” Wagner said.
With its investment in local capability, load testing, predictive analytics and people, SEW-EURODRIVE is driving a new standard of industrial reliability.
For Australian miners, that means confidence that the heart of their plant will keep beating strong, wherever the next haul road leads.
This feature appeared in the December issue of Australian Mining magazine.