Company-Wide Focus on Customer Care

Halfway through a 420-foot cathodic protection boring on a remote site deep in the woods of Louisiana, C&S Lease Service experienced an hydraulic pump failure on one of their DM450s. Within three days they were back up and running thanks to the collective efforts of Team Geoprobe^®.

Hydraulic Pump Replacement

“We got the pipe tripped out, and in the next day and half a Geoprobe^® service technician from Florida, an engineer from Salina, and a hydraulic pump arrived,” Dru Robertson, cathodic protection services, said. “They replaced the hydraulic pump in the field while we were still rigged up on the hole.”

The issue turned out to be a hydraulic pump manufacturer defect and not anything that could have been prevented. However, while on site Glenn LaPlatte, Southeast Service Center technician, and TJ Glissman, machine design engineer, noticed the hydraulic tank had a crack forming at the welds.

“They patched the hydraulic tank on the job site when they drained the fluids. Within a day they replaced the hydraulic pump, cleaned out and patched the hydraulic tank, and started up the machine. We were only down two or three days,” Robertson said. “When a rig shuts down, it’s anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 per week we’re losing in revenue and four to five guys sitting at home not working. All three of our DM rigs are vital to what we’ve got going on.”

Five months later when they brought the DM450 into the Kansas Service Center (KSSC) to swap out the duplex pump to a centrifugal pump, the service team replaced the hydraulic tank.

Top Head Rebuild

While on another job site, the top head bearings went out. They disassembled the head and hauled it to the KSSC to be rebuilt.

“The top head bearings failure was probably more on us due to missing some maintenance despite the list of items we keep a close eye on,” Robertson said. “We arrived to the service center with the top head early in the morning. The service team had it torn down and replaced all the bearings and seals so we were back on the road that evening.”

Stellar Service Support

Lamenting how the service industry has gone downhill in recent years, Robertson describes Geoprobe^® service as “above par for sure.”

“They take care of issues in a timely manner. They send parts overnight. Any issues in the field, Jason [Lindenmuth, KSSC shop lead] always gets us an answer fairly quickly,” Robertson said. “I’ve been pleased with the service and responses received from the team.”