Tailored technologies
28 May 2013
Red Dragon Valves’ Colin Wait provides an insight into how bespoke solutions are helping smaller companies gain the upper hand in the valves market.
Within niche applications, valve manufacturers that offer bespoke solutions are thriving. But it’s not always the big players that are making the most of this opportunity.
Smaller companies, with often more freedom and flexibility to innovate, are leading the pack when it comes to innovation.
Process Engineering’s Rob Smith spoke to one such company that believes a tailored approach, combined with technical expertise, is crucial when operating in the valves market.
Colin Wait, product development manager at Red Dragon Valves, outlines why technologies offered by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can drive forward innovation in a market which is traditionally conservative in its approach.
What is unique about the service offering of Red Dragon Valves?
You’ve heard the phrase – “people buy from people”? In our case we have the engineering background to understand clients’ requirements. By engaging with our clients we develop relationships that go beyond the conventional supplier-customer expectation.
How has working as a smaller company benefited your offering?
As a specialist manufacturer we can offer products that many of the big boys can’t, and maybe don’t want to, such as low volume filter regulators in monel or super duplex. If you go to one of the really big, multi-national players, they have so many products that they try and keep standard, because the cost of them designing a special is not an attractive prospect unless the quantities are significant.
Do your customers recognise the value of bespoke solutions?
Yes, but not always for the same reasons. For some we have provided valve solutions for a difficult application where all others have proven to be unreliable. For others it can be the case that they no longer have the expertise to engineer the solutions in house. In other cases it can be heavily biased to commercial needs.
Why is technical expertise so crucial in your market?
It used to be the case within the industry that a customer would say they wanted a standard valve, so they were given one. Nothing more. No doubt some people still do that. But our policy is to understand what the customer wants to achieve, talk to them about it, form a partnership through careful consideration of their needs, solve the problem and develop a strong degree of trust.
Can you provide an example of when this was the case?
Recently we faced an issue where a customer needed to divert water at 100Bar by utilising a 3-way control system. He insisted on using a solenoid valve, but the 3-way control required posed complications that you do not generally encounter with a typical fire sprinkler system.
This application was different in that he wanted to be able to reduce the upstream line pressure back to zero at the point when the water misting was no longer required, using only one valve and in a compact package.
We had an option for creating a double valve with Nadi that would allow individual control of the system, stop the pressure and then vent the line through the use of two separate control coils. It gave far more positive control than a standard 3-way solenoid valve and was considerably more cost effective than an alternative product capable of handling the pressure.
Other than flexibility, what benefits can SME manufacturers bring to the valves market?
Responsiveness. By having a smaller scale of production, a manufacturer can tailor their supply in terms of lead times, new designs, specials etc. according to changing market demands. It isn’t quite a draw it, build it, sell it response but it is still worlds away from multi-year development cycles with layers of complexity from corporate politics, bureaucracy and cost cutting which can blunt the effectiveness of the original intended solution.
