Total Equipment Co. Inc.

Total Equipment adds to its capabilities and services to provide complete solutions to its oil and gas customers.

Total Equipment Company is clear about what it offers with its name. Serving clients around western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the company is dedicated to providing complete solutions for its oil and gas customers. Total Equipment Company was founded in 1982 as a local pump and compressor distributor with 10 employees, but has since expanded to over 100 employees and offers a wide range of fluid handling and compressed air products.

Additionally, because Total Equipment is located in the center of the Marcellus and Utica Shale, its business has grown by approximately 50 percent in the last five years by serving the local gas industry. The company believes its dedication to service will ensure its continued growth.

“Right now we are doing many turnkey packaged solutions for our energy customers,” says Eric Solverson, vice president. “Our custom equipment offerings can be skidded and pre-wired so customers can literally set it down and get to work. We are packaging a considerable number of pump stations and compressed air stations in ocean containers that are completely pre-piped, wired, insulated and heated, so it is truly plug and play.”

About four years ago, Total Equipment expanded its equipment packaging center to provide custom designed skids and containers, and it also greatly expanded its rental fleet to support the Oil and Gas market. Customers have embraced these solutions because they allow for fast on-site installation and commissioning. Local piping contractors or electricians don’t have to come in to do the work, and customers know exactly what they will be getting in terms of the solution’s footprint and performance.

Solverson notes that these expanded offerings allow the company’s outside field engineers to work with clients on full, turnkey solutions. “They aren’t just selling equipment as they may have years ago,” he explains. “We’ve been training our staff to look at things like the total cost of ownership, return on investments and the simplicity of a transaction by offering skidded packages or turnkey systems.”

Total Equipment also provides installation and service contracts as part of its service portfolio. “We try to offer the entire package – design and engineering, equipment selection, proposal generation, the sales process, installation, start up and commissioning, and customer training.” Solverson says. “We also put a large focus on field service support after equipment commissioning. We offer various preventive service programs with monthly or quarterly planned service visits to ensure the equipment we supply is maintained per the equipment OEM specifications. We have over 400 customers on a PM program because many don’t have the expertise or time to do in-house maintenance themselves. They are looking at companies like us to help with that.

“We’ve really seen a shift in the market place in the past 10 to 15 years” he adds. “Customers have less time and internal resources to properly maintain, repair, or install equipment, so we’ve filled that void by greatly expanding our service organization and broadening our service capabilities.”

Quick Response
Total Equipment continues to look to expand its market presence, and a big focus has been finding opportunities for customers to reduce their energy consumption. Frequently, pumps and compressors are the largest users of electricity at a facility, Solverson explains, and so a majority of any projects’ ROI involves energy paybacks. As a result, its field sales engineers are always trying to find and present solutions that will save energy.

“It has required a different training focus for our sales team to look at energy and payback analysis compared to the classic equipment features and benefits type of sales process.” he says. “Customers want to look at total cost of ownership, so we provide a detailed analysis of the long-term costs of operating our equipment. Frequently, the cost of electricity to operate a plant air compressor in one year exceeds the purchase price.”

Through Pennsylvania Act 129, customers are eligible for energy rebates by performing energy reduction projects, so many customers are proactively upgrading older equipment to more energy efficient equipment. As an example, a local gypsum board plant recently upgraded its entire compressed air system with TEC, Solverson notes, deciding to replace their 25-year-old equipment. The new system has saved the gypsum plant more than 2 million kilowatt hours per year of energy, which allowed it to receive a rebate check for over $100,000 from the local power company, Duquesne Light.

“Our growth has enabled us to offer a broader range of services and field support for our customers,” he says. “We can perform major pump rebuild work in-house without needing to sub any of it out, and we have 25 service technicians on the road in company service vehicles, so we can also serve customers at their locations. Our size offers a lot of flexibility which results in quick response time to our customers. Our goal is to respond to a customers’ needs within hours, not days. Speed and accuracy are keys to our customer mission statement.”