Kerf Recognised as Flagship Dealer For Burny & Kaliburn

The success of Kerf Developments has undoubtedly been built upon the quality of its Plasma and Oxy-fuel cutting machines. However, no company can rest on its laurels and Kerf has invested and evolved their business to not only be the UK and Ireland's primary manufacturer of high density plasma cutting and Oxy-fuel cutting equipment but also to be the UK and Ireland's flagship dealership for the Burny & Kaliburn range of control systems and high density plasma cutting and marking systems.

The globally renowned Burny & Kaliburn brands that fully complement each other, have recognised Rochdale based Kerf as its primary UK and Ireland dealer, credit to the company's ongoing investment levels. Commenting upon this status, Kerf Developments Managing Director, Mr Dan Taylor believes: "We have been continually evolving our products and are conscious that service and support is a key element of any solution. To this end, we have worked closely with Burny & Kaliburn to integrate their products into our machines. We have committed our staff to extensive and ongoing training on the Burny, Kaliburn and Inova range of control systems, plasma systems and torch height control units."

This continuous training program sees Kerf staff undergoing regular internal training as well as training at Burny in Germany on the latest software and product updates. As the UK and Ireland's largest installer of Burny and Kaliburn systems, the benefit to the customer is the expertise and service levels available from Kerf that instils confidence in the end user. This service level is guaranteed by Kerf's investment in remote diagnostic support for customers. Kerf has invested heavily in computer and networking software to provide this feature to its customers, so the end user has a plasma cutting machine that can be remotely interrogated by the Kerf engineer to maximise uptime and eliminate costly, time consuming downtime and engineer call-outs.

Affirming the level of service and support provided by Kerf, the UK Managing Director for Burny-Kaliburn, Mr Chris Desmond comments: "We supply our systems to a number of plasma machine manufacturers and Kerf is clearly the most pro-active with respect to training, service and support, spare part supply and providing an overall package to its end users. One clear example of this is Kerf's extensive stock holding of consumables and spare parts. Kerf can supply its customers with spares and parts within 24 hours. This stockholding commitment highlights how Kerf customers benefit over manufacturers with alternate Plasma cutting machines."

This stocking of spares, just like the service department, doesn't only encompass existing products but also offers support for the Burny range of products that date back to the company's UK entry in the late 1980's. Legacy products such as the Burny 2.5, 3, 5 and 10, that have been superseded by new products are still supported by Kerf.

As Mr Desmond continues: "Many OEMs offer little or no support for ageing machines as the product knowledge, expertise and spare part availability is often very limited. Kerf has invested heavily in providing full support for machines that are supplied by alternate vendors with Burny-Kaliburn and Legacy systems, whereas the OEM's that originally supplied the machine may have no UK support facility and in many instances have not kept up to date with existing product developments, let alone systems that may be over 30 years old."

Highlighting the importance of this support, Kerf's Mr Taylor says: "We have invested heavily in our after sales service as well as our retrofitting department. The ability to retrofit new control and plasma systems to old machines is increasingly common in the existing economic climate. Workshops with old machines want to increase their productivity without the cost of new plant. By retrofitting a new control system and replacing ageing machine elements, we can breathe life into an old machine. Additionally, it extends our customer base for spares, service, consumables and also new machine sales."

Concluding on the Kerf commitment to the UK and Ireland marketplace, Mr Desmond says: "Our philosophy is that the Burny and Kaliburn brands have evolved to work in perfect synergy with each other. This product alignment enables our control and plasma systems to provide ease of use with high levels of automation for significantly improved productivity. Additionally, as the systems have been designed to work together, the cutting quality and finishes are dramatically improved. Unlike many Profile cutting machine manufacturers, Kerf has installed demo machines at its facility. This not only highlights the quality of the Kerf machines and its cutting solutions but how the machines work in perfect synergy with the Burny-Kaliburn systems to optimise productivity and quality. Furthermore, it provides a training facility for end users."

"Like us, Kerf's primary concern is to keep the end user in a high productivity environment whether this is eliminating downtime through excellent service, retrofitting new controls to old machines or supplying new cutting machines," says Mr Desmond.