One of the world’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of state-of-the-art machines used for humanitarian demining in Ukraine has recently opened its first on-site service centre.
This was announced by Global Clearance Solutions (GCS) on its company website. The Swiss company with a production facility in Germany is thus taking an important step towards localising and expanding its capacities in Ukraine just six months after signing a memorandum of understanding with the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy.
According to GCS, thanks to the newly opened service centre, it is now possible to shorten the repair times for the GCS-100 and GCS-200 demining machines used in Ukraine by several weeks.
A single remote-controlled GCS-200 demining machine can clear an area of around 10,000 square metres per day, which is equivalent to more than one football pitch.
If this state-of-the-art machinery can now be deployed again several weeks earlier than usual following repairs, this will significantly speed up mine clearing operations in Ukraine, which is currently the country most heavily contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance in the world.
A fact that should make customers such as the National Police of Ukraine or the agricultural company NIBULON very happy. Both have been extensively equipped with GCS demining equipment, which was partly financed with German funds.
The new service centre is based on the service and maintenance facility that GCS opened in Ukraine in November 2023.
A company spokesperson told me that the service and maintenance facility has been extensively expanded and improved. New equipment has been procured and made available, and additional staff in the form of mechanics and field service technicians have been trained and hired.
In addition, the spare parts warehouse has also been significantly stocked up. Taken together, the measures undertaken resulted in technicians now being available around the clock and long waiting times for spare parts deliveries from Germany being a problem of the past.
However, it is also possible to service and repair the 10 GCS-100 and 57 GCS-200 that were delivered to customers in Ukraine by the 1st of April outside the service centre.
The company spokesperson told me that they have both a mobile container workshop and two mobile service vehicles on site. The latter are available for minor maintenance and repair work directly on site with the customer.
Even though the establishment of the service centre was an important and decisive step towards localisation and expansion of capacities in Ukraine, GCS is clearly already looking to the future.
I was told that the next step would be to localise the production of some spare parts in Ukraine. This should enable the company to completely dispense with at least some imports from its production site in Stockach (Germany) in future and would make it much more independent in terms of supplying its own mine-clearing machines with spare parts.
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