AREPA: Restoring confidence

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When – and even before – things go wrong with your equipment, AREPA is here to restore confidence

No matter the industry, manufacturers rely on equipment to run smoothly in order to meet production goals, customer requests, and financial targets. Every minute that business critical equipment is non-operational is devastating for any company – from missed production and sales, to impacts on employees and bottom line performance. In the event of a catastrophic fire, flood, or equipment breakdown, global equipment consulting and restoration firm, AREPA, can help you turn things around. Whether through preventive maintenance services, equipment consulting, disaster preparedness, or post-incident equipment restoration, AREPA, the equipment division of global forensic consulting firm Envista Forensics, is committed to help companies maintain healthy production, while also providing critical support after a disaster. No business owner ever wants to experience a crippling property loss, but even with the most sophisticated risk management strategies and maintenance processes, unforeseen events still happen. And when they do, AREPA is there to aid businesses with getting equipment back into production as quickly as possible.

360° value proposition

Since 1981, AREPA has helped thousands of businesses in more than 60 countries. From marine and energy, to medical, food processing, manufacturing, and everything in between, AREPA has been a trusted partner when companies need them most. AREPA’s industry-leading equipment services, combined with Envista’s multidisciplinary forensic analysis offerings, provide businesses integral solutions to today’s most challenging technical problems.

“No matter the life cycle stage of the equipment or issue at hand, we have you covered. Envista is positioned to assist businesses and stakeholders provide answers to complex engineering and forensic consulting matters, and AREPA provides equipment restoration solutions. Ultimately we provide a 360° value proposition for our customers,” Global Executive Vice President, AREPA,  Dino Chece told BOSS.

“For example, if a factory catches fire, Envista can investigate, determine the cause, and quantify damages,” Chece said. “In most cases where you have a fire, you also have water damage, so the fire investigators, electrical engineers, or structural engineers may all be involved to look at the situation more comprehensively, assist with valuation of the claim and when possible, recommending equipment restoration as a cost-efficient, time saving solution to bringing business back to production.”

Today Envista’s forensic consulting division works with insurance carriers, legal professionals, and risk managers to provide damage assessments and forensic analyses following property and liability losses. From structural and building incidents, natural disasters, fires and electrical failures, to mechanical breakdowns and cyber disasters, the Envista team deploys to businesses around the world, providing certainty amidst the most uncertain times.

“We have service units that help connect the verticals,” he said. “For example, when we are assigned an equipment loss by an insurer or business, we will deploy a forensic equipment consultant. If it’s determined that the equipment may be restored, they will automatically bring one of AREPA’s restoration experts in. It’s a cross-collaboration, a matrix organization.”

Mitigating Disasters Before They Happen

The best way to deal with disasters is to do all you can to keep them from happening. That entails employing risk management best practices to ensure equipment is operating under the correct conditions.

Just like with routine car maintenance, keeping an eye on potential problems before they become unmanageable is the ideal way to mitigate failure or disaster. Customers can count on AREPA when something goes wrong, but counting on them when everything seems to be just fine is an area where they can bring immeasurable value.

AREPA’s routine monitoring and servicing of equipment goes a long way toward preventing worst-case scenarios and saves customers a lot of money in the long run, and that includes safety inspections. AREPA has an electrical inspections team based in the Netherlands, AREPA Inspexx, who specialize in various types of preventive, safety inspections based on Dutch and European standards.

“We conduct electrical inspections to ensure that the installations are done properly. The risk of fires increases on mis-installations due to electrical sparks,” Chece said. “We can do a lot of work to minimize and prevent failure. Whether it be a manufacturing facility, municipality, a church, or a restaurant, the industrial applications that we serve today through the insurance channel are literally wide-open.”

In Case of Emergency

Of course, not everything is within your or AREPA’s control. Even with all the preventive maintenance in the world, disasters still happen. When they do, AREPA is ready to respond 24/7. Equipment owners turn to their insurance companies, and the insurance companies turn to AREPA, which makes a quick determination whether the equipment can be restored.

“If it’s deemed restorable, we will then give the insurance a cost estimate,” Chece said. “If they like what they see, we can typically start to perform the work within a couple of days. It leads to a significantly faster turnaround time to bring the equipment back to production than if you were to replace the equipment.”

When considering equipment restoration after a loss, know that equipment and systems are often brought back into production in a matter of a few weeks, as opposed to delays of several months if you’re ordering new equipment. Today’s supply chain interruptions further enhance the convenience and value associated with professional equipment restoration and decontamination. To ensure they’re able to best serve clients, AREPA has established key partnerships with several facility restoration firms across the globe. As these firms tackle the physical clean-up and structural rebuilds, AREPA is able to work behind the scenes addressing the needs of business critical equipment. And similar to their partnership with facility managers, they also work with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) when they need material or parts, to get them installed quickly and correctly.

New Horizons

In the coming months, AREPA is looking to expand their services into white-glove industries such as pharmaceutical, medical, food, and renewable energy that need to decontaminate equipment regularly to meet regulatory standards. Due to success of their Netherlands inspection services, AREPA also looks to expand preventive maintenance services to offer those more widely, which includes scaling their safety inspections, more advanced equipment monitoring, and increasing market coverage for their disaster preparedness company audits.

The world is changing faster than we can often keep up with. Whether it be technological advancement or economic impacts, businesses must be proactive in sourcing solutions to meet the needs of their employees, customers and shareholders, today and in the future. AREPA understands these challenges and is continuously working to develop and expand their service offerings to provide trusted solutions that you can depend on.