 With R19-million worth of orders already in the pipeline for 2007,
R14-million of which will cater for mining sector demand, the South
African branch of peristaltic pumps manufacturer Watson-Marlow
Bredel expects to double last year’s R30-million turnover, GM
Nico van Schalkwyk tells Mining
Weekly.
Some of the company’s biggest orders come from the
platinum-mining sector, which, van Schalkwyk says, accounts for
about 80% of mining- related pump orders at present.
Recent orders include a R1,1-million order from Anglo Platinum for
its Amandelbult platinum mine, and a three-phase order from
Potgietersrus Platinum Limited (PPL) valued at R1,8-million.
Amandelbult will receive 32 pumps from across the Watson-Marlow
500, 600 and 700 ranges, as well as tubing.
Meanwhile, PPL is replacing its old SP range of pumps with the
new-generation direct-coupled patented peristaltic pumps. The first
batch, worth about R800 000 was delivered in October 2006. The most
recent second-phase order worth R850 000 was delivered in just
eight working days and consisted of five SPX65s, eight SPX25s, four
SPX15s and sixteen SPX10s. Van Schalkwyk expects that the third and
final phase delivery should be completed within the next
quarter.
Large orders for Watson-Marlow Bredel pumps were also received in
2006 for Rustenburg Platinum, valued at R900 000; Two Rivers,
valued at R1,3-million; and a number of Lonmin mines, to the value
of R900 000.
In March 2007, the company received the first of several orders
from the small platinum operation, Crocodile Mine. This order for
six close-coupled pumps and tubing is valued at R100 000. The mine
plans to replace all 30 VerderLab pumps that it ordered from
Watson-Marlow Bredel South Africa competitor Verder South Africa in
September 2005, over the coming months, as its budget allows.
Watson-Marlow Bredel South Africa considers this a glowing
endorsement of its products. Though slightly more expensive than
some other pumps, they compensate for this with superior
reliability, accuracy and spares availability, Van Schalkwyk
states.
(A spokesperson for Verder South Africa confirms that the pump
product in question has since been discontinued.)
All pumps are manufactured at the company’s three main
factories situated in Holland, England and Sweden. Parts are then
assembled at its Watson-Marlow Bredel South Africa facilities in
Honeydew, which holds stock to the value of R6-million at all times
to meet local demand.
Van Schalkwyk estimates that “at least 75% of the world
market [for peristaltic pumps is held by] Watson-Marlow Bredel, and
at least 75% to 80% of the market in South Africa”.
“Our goal for the next couple of years is to capture those
markets that will primarily consider a peristaltic pump over any
other product,” he adds.
This goal encompasses retro- fitting obsolete ranges and new
installations across both mining and nonmining sectors of
industry.
Six years ago, the company started replacing its old SP range of
pumps with the new patented SPX range.
Developers are currently modifying the prototypes in line with
lessons learnt from extensive endurance testing in Europe. Marketed
as durable and low- maintenance, Bredel’s new-gener- ation
SPX series pumps are 25% stronger, 10% lighter, use 30% fewer parts
and have a 30% smaller space footprint than previous models.
The company has so much confidence in the products that, as of
January 1, this year, it extended the warranty on the 520, 620 and
now 720 series pumps to five years. The company’s UK arm,
Watson-Marlow, detected a near-zero incidence of returned pumps
even with established three-year guarantees in place and thus
decided to extend this.
Van Schalkwyk reiterates that peristaltic pumps are a niche product
and represent, perhaps, only 3% of the world pumps market. However,
they are ideally suited to peculiarly abrasive and corrosive
applications, he points out, even though knowledge in industry of
their uses may not be as widespread as it is about the more popular
centrifugal pumps.
One of the key design factors of peristaltic pumps is that the
pumped product remains in the pump hose and does not come into
contact with any moving com- ponents of the pump, such as the
gearbox bearings.
Product is squeezed through the tube or hose by a number of
external rotating shoes or rollers. These hose pumps combine the
advantages of a close-coupled pump, namely a small footprint, and
the fully protected drive of bare shaft (long- or direct-coupled)
pumps. The patented direct-coupled gearbox plugs directly into the
pumphead. This creates a buffer zone between the pumphead bearings
and the gearbox bearing, protecting both and providing timely
warnings of potentially damaging lubricant seal failure.
Because the rotor is fully and centrally supported by its own
bearings, the gearbox bearings are spared the load from the
overhanging pumphead.
“The pump can run dry without any damage to the mechanism.
This is the major advantage of peristaltic pumps over progressive
cavity pumps, for instance,” Van Schalkwyk explains.
He works hard to educate industry participants about peristaltic
pumps, not only to improve business but also to prolong the working
life of, and customer satisfaction with, these machines.
The company already conducts in-house repair work but hopes that a
specialised preventative maintenance department will enable it to
satisfy mines by making staff avail-able to perform on-site repairs
to machinery. This will further augment the company’s already
central customer service policy, saving its clients time and undue
expense.
Just as pump performance may be hampered by a worker’s lack
of familiarity with the different mechanism of a peristaltic pump,
it can also suffer if the pump is used with counterfeit and
unapproved auxiliary components.
“Nine times out of ten, a customer will place an order for
the complete system, which includes the pump, motor and
gearbox,” Van Schalkwyk says. Watson-Marlow Bredel’s
preferred suppliers of pump motors and drives, with whom the
company has a long relationship, are standard motors and drive
specialists SEW Eurodrive, Brevini and WEG. The three
companies’ products are standard for mining applications in
many of the mines operated by major companies, he adds. The company
boasts a number of prestigious contracts this year from the
nonmining sector.
It has secured an order from Rand Water’s Suikerbos Plant,
near Johannesburg, for the installation of twelve SPX80s, five
SPX65s, three SPX50s and two SPX40s to be used in lime slurry and
silica dosing at the plant.
The order is worth R1,5-million – a substantial boost in
revenue from the water sector compared with the R10 000 to R15 000
it earned the company in 2006. Van Schalkwyk calls this order
“a major breakthrough in the nonmining industry”.
SAB-Miller uses the company’s range of pumps in its European
breweries and the Bredel industrial pump range is already
standardised for all of the brewer’s African oper-ations, he
explains.
Van Schalkwyk’s personal goal is to capture as great a share
of the available nonmining sector demand in South Africa as
possible.
In order to pursue this crucial market segment (which includes
water, sewage, effluent, petrochemicals, food and beverage) and
continue to provide the company’s existing and potential
mining sector clientele with dedicated service, Watson-Marlow
Bredel South Africa will assign two special- ised sales-persons to
focus purely on mining and nonmining.
As part of its expansion programme, the company appointed another
sales engineer, Chris van Vuuren, at the end of May, 2007, bringing
the total number of new sales and customer-care employees this year
to four.
The company has three primary manufacturing hubs that specialise in
extending peristaltic pump technology to various applications. The
larger industrial range of peristaltic pumps is manufactured at the
Bredel factory, in Delden, the Netherlands. The Watson-Marlow
factory in Falmouth, England, manufactures a range of smaller
peristaltic pumps and the Alitea factory, in Sweden, is responsible
for the smallest of the company’s range of peristaltic pumps
geared mainly for original-equipment manufacturers. |
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