As we embark upon another new year (the year 2026 seemed unfathomable when I was a kid), it’s always a good time to reflect on the previous year and speculate on the year to come. At EMA we’ve continued to stay busy servicing Medium Voltage Variable Frequency Drives, its all we do and we’re very good at it. We contribute our success as a company to multiple factors (and yes, some of these are bragging but they are facts):
Lack Of Skilled Labor
EMA has always had the best VFD troubleshooters in the industry, but when we started in 1990, most industrial facilities had skilled tradesmen who were usually able to solve simple problems. Unfortunately for many of our customers, much of the skilled labor force has or is getting ready to retire, leaving a major troubleshooting gap that EMA is even more in demand to fill. Many of our customers are extremely sharp but no longer have the time and/or bandwidth to deal with VFD-related problems like they used to.
Increased Demand For Medium Voltage Drives
The demand for Medium Voltage Variable Frequency Drives continues to rise as the United States pushes to increase manufacturing within the country. The MV drive market is currently valued around 1.81 billion dollars and expects to increase significantly going forward. As a company that troubleshoots, starts up, and repairs Medium Voltage VFDs, we’re thrilled to be firmly entrenched in this continually growing market. More MV drives = More service opportunities.
Manufacturer Priorities
With the increase in demand, comes a decrease in the manufacturer’s ability to support and service their drives. Many plants that use Medium Voltage VFDs are losing thousands of dollars for every hour of downtime, yet it typically takes a week or more to get a service engineer from the manufacturer to come onsite. EMA is an agnostic, third-party whose priority is to service the customer, not make a particular VFD brand look good. I’m by no means blasting the manufacturers but their primary goal is to sell new equipment, service is secondary. Many of our customers come to us looking for any alternative to using the manufacturer and they’re pleasantly surprised by EMA’s response. The manufacturer’s priority is to sell new equipment and make their brand look good; our #1 priority is to get our customer’s Medium Voltage Variable Frequency Drives running.
Small Business Agility
EMA takes pride in having a small company culture but the expertise of a much larger one. Although we lack some of the resources of a large company, we also lack the red-tape, bureaucracy, and impersonal touch that inevitably comes when you deal with a large company. EMA is a family-owned business and all of our upper management are “home grown”. When you call us, you talk to an actual person (imagine that!) not a bot taking you in circles. Our service engineers are extremely well-rounded and free-thinking, solving your problems with out-of-the-box solutions. Once a customer decides to use EMA, they rarely use anyone else.
Innovative Ideas
Because we are a small business, it’s easy for us to implement new ideas and/or better ways to do things.
- Refurbished Drives: Refurbished Medium Voltage VFDs has become a major part of our business and offers customers a less expensive and much quicker alternative to buying a brand-new drive. We gather drives (new and used) from all over the world, refurbish and test them, and make them available to our customers at a fraction of the cost and with almost no lead time.
- Shop Repairs: We’ve spent a lot of time and research over the last 15 years to expand our ability to quickly repair and test medium voltage power cells. Our repair shop is full of power cell repairs, particularly cells from the Toshiba T300MVi and T300MV2 MV Drive and the Siemens Perfect Harmony MV Drive series. We do much more than change components, we’ve developed extensive testing procedures and load stands to make sure each repair is fully tested.
- Medium Voltage Drive Monitoring: What’s the next best thing to having an EMA troubleshooter onsite? How about having one remotely with consistent, trended data about that particular MV drive’s health. EMA, along with its strategic partner, Powerside, developed DriveScan, a Medium Voltage VFD monitoring tool that has proven extremely beneficial for many of our customers. DriveScan, like EMA, is an agnostic, third-party monitoring device that monitors, trends, and analyzes multiple aspects of a medium voltage VFD’s health, alerting the customer and EMA of any potential issues.
Let Us Help You
Do you need service or repair on your existing Medium Voltage Variable Frequency Drive? Do you need to replace it? Or do you just want someone to talk to? Contact Us, we’d love to help. Email us, call us, or chat with us today.
We’re looking to make 2026 as good as 2025 and that starts with you. Let us prove to you that No One ANYWHERE, Is Better At Drives Than We Are!