From Budget Control to Business Continuity: Why Service Credits Are a Smart Move

In today’s industrial landscape, plant availability is king. Whether you’re managing an ageing asset base or investing in new automation, your ability to maintain uptime, control costs and respond quickly to unplanned events is essential to keeping operations running efficiently and competitively.

At iconsys, we don’t just deliver automation, power and control solutions – we build long-term partnerships over the full lifecycle of your assets. That’s why every automation project we deliver is backed by robust, flexible support options – and why we’ve made Service Credits a core part of our support contracts.

Service Credits offer a smarter way to manage asset support across the full lifecycle – improving cost certainty, more cost-effective engineering hours, boosting responsiveness and delivering total flexibility.

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What Are Service Credits?

Service Credits are pre-paid units of value that can be used against any of the services or parts provided by iconsys.

They are available within a structured support agreement or as a standalone offering, allowing our customers to streamline the way they manage support, maintenance, upgrades and even small-scale training or system improvement works.

Rather than raising a new quotation, purchase order or approval chain every time a support need arises, customers simply redeem credits. This speeds up response times, reduces internal admin and enables effective financial planning.

They can be used across:

🔧 Emergency callouts & on-site engineering support
🔧 Spare parts procurement
🔧 Commissioning and recommissioning
🔧 Software changes and enhancements
🔧 Ad-hoc onsite training sessions
🔧 Remote diagnostics or reconfiguration
🔧 Obsolescence upgrades and replacements

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Key Benefits for Maintenance Managers and Budget Holders

Service Credits offer significant value for maintenance professionals managing the competing pressures of cost, downtime and technical obsolescence

✅ Predictable Budgeting: With a fixed monthly or annual commitment, Service Credits give businesses better cost control and forecasting. You can plan and allocate maintenance budget without fear of cost creep or unexpected spikes

✅ Faster Response Times: When something breaks, there’s no time to wait for quotations, approvals and purchase orders. Service Credits remove that delay, ensuring engineers can be deployed and action taken immediately

✅ Flexible Usage: Credits aren’t limited to one type of service. They’re fully flexible and can be redeemed wherever they’re most needed – whether it’s a part, a person, a service or a combination

✅ Built-In Savings: Service Credits are priced lower than equivalent ad-hoc service rates. That means you gain access to iconsys support at a preferential cost – making them not just convenient, but cost-effective too

✅ Future-Proofing Assets: For businesses managing ageing equipment or transitioning to newer platforms, Service Credits support a proactive approach to obsolescence – enabling you to plan small incremental upgrades that avoid expensive reactive replacement

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Customer Success: Cooper Coated Coil Ltd

A clear demonstration of Service Credits in action comes from Cooper Coated Coil Ltd (CCC), a long-term customer which has adopted Service Credits as part of their asset management strategy.

When a 25-year-old Allen Bradley PanelView 1000 HMI failed, it could have resulted in significant downtime and loss of productivity. But thanks to their Service Credit agreement with iconsys, CCC avoided the red tape entirely.

 

Within the week, we had:

✔️ Sourced and installed an Ethernet-enabled PLC processor

✔️ Delivered and commissioned a new, platform-independent HMI from Beijer

✔️ Ported the existing application from backup

✔️ Upgraded communications from Data Highway+ to Ethernet for remote access and future support

And all of this was covered by their credits – with no additional purchase orders, approvals or quotations required.

 

Here’s what CCC had to say:

CCC Ltd have had a strong partnership with iconsys Ltd for over 20 years, strengthened by the Service Credit System introduced over 10 years ago. Recently we had a failure on an Allen Bradley unit. I reported it to iconsys on Monday morning (as the failed unit was not an off-the-shelf product, it provided the ideal opportunity to upgrade both the HMI and PLC, with new parts ordered immediately) – by Friday we had a new HMI and PLC processor installed and working. Future-proofing plant and equipment and the costs covered within our service credit agreement. A first-class service as ever from iconsys – something which seems more difficult to find in these current times.

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Designed for Today’s Industrial Environment

For many maintenance teams, the procurement process can often be the biggest barrier to timely action. Raising purchase orders, obtaining multiple quotes and chasing internal approval adds hours – or days – to your response time.

With Service Credits, you retain full flexibility and control but eliminate the delays.

Whether you’re supporting critical legacy systems or looking to extend the value of newer assets, Service Credits offer an agile, cost-efficient way to manage the ongoing technical needs of your operation.

 

When Are Service Credits Most Useful?

While Service Credits are relevant to almost every business we support, they’re especially valuable in the following scenarios:

✔️ Plants running legacy automation platforms (where spare parts and support can be unpredictable)

✔️ Sites undergoing a phased upgrade of systems or controls

✔️ Operations requiring rapid mobilisation of support without delay

✔️ OEMs supporting installed equipment under their own service contracts

✔️ Organisations with strict cost control or CAPEX/OPEX boundaries

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Add Long-Term Value to Your Automation Strategy

Your automation system is not just a one-time investment – it’s a long-term, business-critical asset. To keep it running reliably and efficiently, you need a service model that matches your operational realities.

That’s where Service Credits come in.

They offer a smarter, more strategic approach to asset lifecycle management – helping you react faster, plan better, and stretch your maintenance budget further.

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Interested in Learning More?

If you’re responsible for maintaining industrial automation equipment and want a support model that improves uptime, simplifies admin and protects your maintenance budget, talk to us about iconsys Service Credits.

We’ll help you find a package that matches your site, your assets and your operational needs.

Leandro Gasparini, Director of Services