On February 11, Siveco China celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relations between China and France, the first major Western power to recognise the PRC in 1964. After a few words on De Gaulle’s independent foreign policy and its relevance to today’s world, we opened bottles of Champagne and shared the anniversary cake. The ceremony was concluded by a ceremonial kiss between a proud French patriot and an attractive CPC Member. Business as usual at Siveco China…

On January 7, our Shanghai team celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany, also known as the Three Kings Festival. Traditionally celebrating the visit of the Three Kings to the Baby Jesus, twelve days after Christmas, the festival has also become a Siveco tradition! The team united to share a flat frangipane cake, known in French as “galette des rois” (kings’ cake), and wine.

Isn’t Christmas the best time of the year? Every year I am looking forward to the holiday season, the Christmas greetings to our customers, the Siveco Christmas tree and the presents for the Siveco kids (more and more of them!), not to forget the Christmas issue of our newsletter!

We have, over the year, in the pages of this newsletter and in press articles, written extensively on the evolving Chinese technical service market. In 2013, China has come a long way, yet plant owners still have difficulties recruiting in-house maintenance teams and finding qualified contractors. At the same time, some service providers have significantly developed their capability but still have problems finding customers.

Last month’s Customer Story provided glimpses into some of Siveco’s small-to-mid size customers that benefit from our prepackaged approach to CMMS (Coswin Light). This month, we publish the second part with 5 more customer short stories.

This article is the first in a series of very short and practical Coswin Tips & Tricks, which Coswin users can start using right away. In Coswin, Job Guidelines are assigned to a single equipment code. Consequently, one work order is created for each intervention (which may include several actions) on an equipment. However, it is very common that preventive maintenance tasks are very short, for example technicians perform checks on multiple equipments during their inspection rounds. With one work order for each equipment, managing inspections work would become overwhelming very...