This SLA defines in practical terms the relationship between distributors and ZOLA ELECTRIC as it relates to technical installations and operations. It emphasises stakeholders activities, expected deliverables with timelines, responsibility matrix, ZOLA support departments and penalties where applicable. The SLA covers the three installation process phases: preinstallation, core installation and post installation.
The objective is to ensure the stakeholders have sound understanding and are in full compliance with all that is presented within the SLA for the following reasons.
ZOLA Electric shall be responsible for the technical training and certification of distributors’ technical teams. The technical training shall be facilitated by ZOLA Electric technical teams at the ZOLA office.
Technical partnership engagement certificates shall be issued to distributors who have proven to be successful at the technical training. The technical partnership engagement certificate shall be renewable every four years for big distributors and every two years for small distributors. The renewals shall be through refresher training tests, operational and service performance over the previous years.
ZOLA Electric reserves the right to withdraw/terminate issued certificates where the distributor fails to meet up with expected best practices guidelines relating to HSE noncompliance, shoddy installations, unethical dealings, nonpayment of requisite operational charges and poor customer service.
| Installation | Task | Department |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-Installation | - Site and Energy audit - System configuration mix presentation/design - Engagement and consultation - Inventory planning: sorting, staging etc. - Equipment, Resources and Accessories deployment | Customer Service Engineering Product Sales TechOps |
| Core Installation | Mechanical Installation - Mounting and installation of solar panel racking system - Solar PV installation - Earthing, termination, testing and commissioning of all mechanical installation components Electrical Installation - Site earth/ground system assessment - INFINITY IPS and all inclusive system components positioning and installations - All electrical cable terminations - Appliances utility interconnection - Installation quality checks before commissioning | TechOps |
| FW installation and upgrades - String configuration, testing and commissioning - Mobile App set up | Application TechOps | |
| Customer Engagement (Education) - INFINITY Mobile App download - System operations education - Best practice application/System Warranty Education - Sign-off | TechOps/ Product Field Quality/Engineering | |
| Project Closure Reports CAT1 PWD2 | TechOps | |
| Post Installation | INFINITY IPS Technical support - Customer Onboarding - After Sales Technical Support Services - Local & Remote support/preventive/corrective | Customer Service Engineering/ Product Field Quality Product/Support service TechOps |
| Project phase | Project Activity | Responsibility Matrix | |
|---|---|---|---|
| INTEGRATOR | ZOLA | ||
| Pre-Installation | - Site and Energy audit - System configuration mix presentation/design - Engagement and consultation - Inventory planning: sorting, packing etc. - Equipment, Resources and Accessories deployment | R/A | C/l |
| Core Installation | Mechanical Installation - Mounting and installation of solar panel racking system - Solar PV installation - Earthing, termination, testing and commissioning of all mechanical installation components Electrical Installation - Site earth/ground system assessment - INFINITY IPS and all inclusive system components positioning and installations - All electrical cable terminations - Appliances utility interconnection - Installation quality checks before commissioning FW installation and upgrades - String configuration, testing and commissioning Installation Components/Accessories Audit - Audit of components/accessories:post installation inventory - Document in BOM and PWD report Janitorial - Clean up all installation debris - Solar PV maintenance Customer Engagement (Education) - INFINITY Mobile App download/setup for customer - System operations - Best practice application/System Warranty - Sign-off Project Closure Reports - CAT - PWD | R/A | C/I |
| Post Installation | INFINITY IPS Technical support - Customer Onboarding - After Sales Technical Support Services - Distributor responsible for forward and reverse logistics needed for warranty claims - Local & remote support/preventive/corrective | R/A | C/I |
| R: Responsible A: Accountable C: Consulted I: Informed | |||
| Installation Phase | Scope of Work | Timeline for Closure | Dist | ZOLA | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre Installation | Energy Audit with report. configuration mix | Within 24 hours of request | R/A | C/l | Configurator tool will be provided |
| Inventory logistics to distributor warehouse | This varies depending on the order volume, location, country of inventory dispatch etc. Usually within 48 hours - 8weeks post payment confirmation | R/A | C/l | Installation location | |
| Core Installation | Mechanical, Electrical , FW installations and system commissioning with PWD and CAT sign-off | Within 48 hours of the inventory drop off at the last mile. gam - 6:30pm | R/A | C/I | End-to-end installation with sign-off is between 8am -6:30pm daily |
| Post Installation | System registration for warranty | Within 30 days of installation | R/A | C/l | Distributor shall register system details on the warranty portal |
| Customer Onboarding | Within 5- 7 days of CAT sign-off | R/A | R/A/C/l | Distributor shall communicate CAT sign-off to ZOLA within 24 hours | |
| Preventive Maintenance | Within 4 - 6 Hours | R/A | C/l | Solar PV cleaning, proactive system performance remote monitoring | |
| System Upgrade | Within 4 - 6 Hours | R/A | C/l | IPS scalability- optimizing capacity | |
| Hardware Replacement | Within 4 -6 Hours | R/A | C/l | ISP, IIPA, Sub panel, Circuit breakers, FLEX P1 inverter, interconnection electric cables. NO IPS or FLEX meter box tampering | |
| Forward/reverse logistics for system/component pre and post repairs | Within 48 hours of system request to service centre | R/A | C/l | Destination is ZOLA accredited service centre | |
| IPS Repairs within Approved Service Centre (ASC) | Within 72 hours of ITP | l | R/A/C | INFINITY IS comprehensive diagnosis, repairs and testing to be done by ZOLA. Task within service centre | |
| Ethical Battery Disposal | At end-of-life | R/A/I | C | Stakeholders | |
| R: Responsible A: Accountable C: Consulted I: Informed | |||||
Escalation severity are categorized into three: S1, S2 and S3.
Where S1 is defined as HIGH, S2 represents MEDIUM and S3 represents LOW.
The various severity categorizations are described below.
Note: Faults logging, tracking and management would be through provided SaaS platforms.
| Severity | Abbreviation | Classification | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Severity 1 | S1 | High |
|
| Severity 2 | S2 | Medium |
|
| Severity 3 | S3 | Low |
|
The faults resolution KPIs are for faults escalations only due to installation and post installation non-compliance and system errors. These are assigned to the distributor’s team to resolve within presented KPIs. The KPI will be used to measure distributors responsiveness and ultimately quality of service. All presented descriptions correspond to severity categorization and respective support levels are to be administered.
Note: Faults logging, tracking and management would be through provided SaaS platforms.
Where recurring incidents and major incidents are logged as a result of installation errors. The distributor team shall submit root cause analyses to ZOLA technical team. The ZOLA team shall call the distributor team for further training. If the recurring incidences continues, ZOLA shall penalize the distributor as deemed necessary.
Where the recurring incidents are logged as a result of the poor installation quality issues. Where the fault is investigated by ZOLA and proven to be a production quality defect by the ZOLA technical team.. Such system shall be decommissioned for replacement by the distributor for proper technical diagnosis at the service centre. .ZOLA shall decide if to redeploy the repaired system or replace with a new system.
The distributor shall be responsible for forward and reverse logistics where the system has been requested to be brought to the service centre.
The distributor shall be given technical authorization for components replacement services. These components shall include the following only with remote support from the ZOLA technical operations or engineering team.
FLEX SPS
INFINITY IPS
Distributors are not authorised to open or attempt to open the FLEX SPS meter box, the INFINITY IPS box or the proprietary inverter for any reason. Distributors found in violation risk losing the distributor partnership certificate and other penalties as deemed necessary by ZOLA may be meted against violators.
For systems and components confirmed faulty within warranty period. ZOLA Electric shall be responsible for diagnosis, repairs and testing. While the distributor will be responsible and accountable for forward and reverse logistics cost regardless of the product warranty status. Where such systems or components are diagnosed to be tampered with, such action voids the warranty clause in the agreement. The distributor shall be responsible for both forward and reverse logistics, full cost of the faulty component, replaced/repaired charges as the case may be and all related taxes within the operating country. A letter shall be sent to the erring distributor with applicable penalty for unauthorized tampering.
For out of warranty systems and components. The distributor shall be responsible for all corrective or recovery maintenance charges which includes spare parts, repairs charges, taxes and forward/reverse logistics charges.
Please check our warranty policy for comprehensive details for all requirements for warranty claims, warranty extension and warranty transfers etc. Visit warranty portal on our website.
Distributors shall have between 5-10% spare components level of the total quantity of inventory purchased. This is to ensure that spare components are always available when needed. This would enhance prompt and reliable MTTR and ultimately enhance effective customer service.
Distributors shall be given access to remotely manage all installations within their cluster. The distributor shall be responsible for annual subscription of the software as a service (SaaS) cloud computing platform for first-hand remote monitoring. This service enhances proactive service deliverables at all times to their customers. The remote monitoring capabilities gives access for system efficiency, performance monitoring and management. Where distributors fail to make subscriptions the SaaS platform will not be accessible.
ZOLA Electric shall be responsible for the operations and management of the service centre. The service centre shall be responsible for L3 service support which includes the localized technical diagnosis, sensitive parts replacement, repairs, system refurbishment, post repairs system functionality tests and end-of-life systems management. It will support all certified distributors in ensuring prompt diagnosis and repairs of faulty systems complying with L3 support services.
The service centre operations shall be between 9am – 6pm daily excluding Sundays and some public holidays. Cost of forward and reverse logistics of systems/equipment deployment to the service centre shall be the responsibility of the distributor.
ZOLA customer service shall communicate the diagnosis report which will include cost of faulty components repairs/replacements, repairs charges, taxes etc. to the distributor within 36 hours of receival at the service centre.
Distributor will be expected to give consent for repairs within 24 hours by issuing an instruction to proceed (ITP) confirmation via email and phone communication. Where ITP is not communicated, repairs will be put on hold. Where ITP instruction is issued via email by the distributor. Repairs timeline is targeted for 72 hours post instruction to proceed (ITP). Where a delay is envisaged for any reasons that may lead to non- compliance to the 72 hours deliverable timeline. The ZOLA customer service shall communicate this ahead to the distributor with apologies.
The distributors HSE/QA compliance, installation and service performance shall be reviewed by ZOLA monthly. Where technical gaps or inefficiencies are identified or reported. ZOLA shall document and take the issue(s) up with the distributors in writing. demanding root cause analysis.
ZOLA shall request retraining for all distributor technical teams at the ZOLA office or online to further enlighten and empower the teams. Repeat offenders shall be penalized accordingly. Penalties shall range from 2-8weeks suspension for offenders, distributor reimbursing customers or ZOLA Electric for faults resolution and lastly suspension or termination of technical engagement agreement/certificate.
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