Valve Case Study - Hydralectric

CASE STUDY: European Drink Dispenser – Customer under NDA

Client Name: Withheld
Sector: Manufacturing

Total Spend: £ TBA
Status: Public

THE CHALLENGE:

Unable to find a suitable valve in their current supply chain due to the bespoke nature and the volumes they needed from prototype to the first few years of roll out. They were interested in our specialised bespoke engineering we offer, that they couldn’t find in the larger catalogue valve manufactures.

THE SOLUTION:

We received an initial enquiry from their purchasing department, and an outline of what they needed to achieve.

After we established, we could manufacture what they needed, they arrange a factory visit to Slovenia to visit out plant, meet the people, and view our assembly lines, and quality processes.

Design teams then work together on the ideas, and drawings, and spent 3 months to agree the final design and the prototype to prove the concept, made from 3D prints, and an initial outline of pricing was agreed based on their expected volume of 50,000 pcs after 3 years.

After initial testing, and feedback from the simulations, we then arranged for custom tooling to be made for the injection moulding machine to produce the valve body and compensator.

From confirmed model to the first production trails were sent after 10 weeks, and after some small modifications, and second trial batch was sent, which met the customer needs, and we moved from trials to production.

We made a custom dispense valve, 24v, with 2 compensators, one for each inlet, on separate flow rates, which required a custom testing unit, and manual setting process to ensure each valve was sent out meeting the customer needs.

THE RESULTS:

First year production was only 5000, then second year orders received for 35,000, and the 3rd year is forecast to be around 50,000.

CUSTOMER QUOTATION:

“We enjoy working with Eki as they are flexible and willing to share their knowledge to collaborate on a solution, and were prepared to work with our initial lower volume and allow for the extra testing we required in our application.”