ABB is your only source for authentic ABB parts

Please be cautious when purchasing ABB parts from non-ABB sources. There have been a growing number of customer complaints regarding part failures and quality issues. We take this very seriously, and immediately review quality, manufacturing, and test records to determine where the part was manufactured, repaired or refurbished. Most often the problematic parts, clearly, did not come from our inventory.

Only ABB has the original, controlled documents for the ABB/ITE HK and K-Line equipment, including the latest revision drawings reflecting improvements, updates, and changes in technology. Replacement parts purchased through third party sources have an unknown history. Some third party vendors may reverse engineer critical parts, engineering worn tolerances into a seemingly new product. Don’t put your plant’s electrical system at risk with substandard parts.

Applications, including motor duty, high ambient temperatures and other detrimental environmental concerns all have an impact on materials used in circuit breakers. You could be buying into more problems and added risk for your power system.

Third party parts suppliers and some third party service companies have been misleading customers with labels on their web sites and sales material such as “OEM ABB parts” or “OEM refurbished parts”. Some represent themselves as ABB partners or channels. Others have engaged in manufacturing counterfeit, off-spec parts and marketing these falsely as OEM parts. They are using the term OEM out of context intentionally to mislead their customers into believing that these parts came from ABB.

The third party suppliers claim to have tested and cleaned the parts they recover, but few have any standards or testing methods, and most have no quality inspection at all. These parts come from obsolete systems and from closed facilities. Others are recovered from insurance claims dealing with chemical contamination and flooding. Most were offered for sale to ABB and rejected due to the extreme environmental exposure, potential corrosion and inherent risk these parts posed.

Our customers have experienced downtime and reliability issues after purchasing parts that contain incorrect component parts, incorrect and incompatible revision levels, even parts falsely labeled as ABB manufactured or ABB refurbished parts. All of these issues can (and have) lead to equipment or process loss and poor system performance.

To contain this fraud we have suspended all sales to companies who have engaged in this deceptive business practice.

To be confident your parts are ABB certified, place orders through your local ABB representative or local ABB Customer Service Center. Manage your risk and demand new, authentic replacement parts for your low and medium voltage circuit breakers. Don’t buy someone else’s problems!