Replacement control system for Hauzer TechCoating PVD Unit

Tender description

There is no other option to keep the coating unit running and bring it up to the most recent safety standards. Replacing the control system for this unit would be a fraction of the cost of an entire new unit. The cost of a new unit would be over £1.2M and would not include the bespoke modifications that the current system has. Major components of the unit have already been replaced e.g. pumping units at a cost of £139k, which were replaced in 2017. Only the original equipment manufacturer is capable of replacing the control system for the this highly complex industrial machine. SHU tendered for replacement pumps for the machine in 2016/17 (1617-05-ACES-JM) and only Hauzer returned a submission. It would have been significantly easier to a third party to reverse-engineer the pump requirements than it would for a company to reverse engineer the control system. An analogy would be that replacing the pumps is like a lung transplant, replacing the control system is like a brain transplant. The first is very difficult, the second impossible.