ALFA LAVAL PUMPS, Brand relaunch

Manufacturing in Action, Source : British Industry
Published : December 2002

ALFA LAVAL PUMPS has put a great deal of effort into boosting its popular SSP Pumps range. Tony Marshall told Colin Browning about the early results

A company can be sitting on a gold mine without being aware of it. After mergers, acquisitions and consolidations certain things disappear from view. In many cases, a once popular brand is neglected. Fortunately, many companies spot this trend and set about grabbing potentially lost opportunities. This is now under way at Alfa Laval Pumps - on 1 November 2002 it announced that its SSP Pumps brand was being relaunched as a means of boosting customer choice.

“It would be true to say that the SSP name lacked a proper focus,” explained Tony Marshall, product support manager. “SSP Pumps is a very strong brand name in the market with a wide customer base. Unfortunately we were simply not promoting it properly and as a result volumes and sales were falling.”

Marshall’s comments were echoed by the business development director Marcel Verhoeven. Speaking when the initial announcement was made he said, “The name SSP Pumps has a long and distinguished history and is the perfect vehicle for promoting to our customers over half a century’s technical expertise and innovation in rotary lobe pumps.” Overall the aim is certainly to increase the company’s market presence and significantly add to its current business volumes.

“We expect to see some results of our new strategy within a six to 12 month timeframe,” Marshall continued. “We have put two additional new sales people in place to cover the domestic market with an additional person to support sales within Europe. This is quite an investment. Already though we are getting a great deal of positive feedback from the customers. Ultimately we would expect to see our turnover increase by £3 million within the next three to five years.”

Whilst being a Swedish company, Alfa Laval has made a considerable commitment to manufacturing in the UK. Alfa Laval is a global market leader with its three key technologies - centrifugal separation, heat transfer and fluid handling. Within the latter the company has its range of positive displacement rotary lobe pumps. As the name suggests, the pumps work by turning two non-contracting, contra rotating rotors within a fully swept pump chamber. For these to operate efficiently, the tolerances within the pumps have to be extremely fine. The pump gearbox where accuracy is paramount ensures correct alignment and synchronisation of the high precision rotors that provide optimum pump efficiency and performance.

Alfa Laval Pumps service has a wide range of applications as Marshall was keen to point out. “We make pumps for everything from ‘clean’ to ‘dirty’ applications,” he said. “We have pumps that are used to move effluent while at the other end of the spectrum our products are used in the pharmaceutical industry. Large numbers of our pumps are made from 316 type stainless steel, but we do use other metals as well.”

The Alfa Laval Pumps UK manufacturing operation is situated at Eastbourne in Sussex. The history of pump manufacturing in the town can be traced back to the Howard Pump Company which pioneered the rotary lobe pump concept in the 1940s. Then in 1958 a group of former Howard employees set up the Stainless Steel Pumps company, still within Eastbourne. The name was abbreviated to SSP Pumps when other materials were introduced. In 1987 SSP Pumps became part of the Alfa Laval group and a new company, Alfa Laval Pumps, was born.

Today the Eastbourne plant covers 12,000 square metres, employs 130 staff and is now the Alfa Laval designated centre of excellence for the rotary lobe pump. The philosophy at the factory is to ensure that each customer ends up with the right pump first time every time. This process begins with a state-of-the-art pump selection and configuration programme. Alfa Laval Pumps has built up a comprehensive database of different liquid characteristics and this is cross-referenced with the volumes to be moved. If, by any chance, the database lacks the correct information, Alfa Laval Pumps is able to make use of its own rheology laboratory. The laboratory is able to perform complex fluid analysis exercises to draw up a bespoke report outlining the properties of the relevant fluid. This is then utilised in the pump selection process. This in-house service remains a unique feature of Alfa Laval Pumps differentiating itself from its European competitors.

The technical information is complemented by Alfa Laval Pumps’ engineering excellence, calling upon the skills of a highly trained and motivated workforce. CNC machine tools and 3D modelling are standard features of production while close partnerships with a carefully limited number of suppliers takes care of external quality control issues. “The market itself is currently oversubscribed,” Marshall concluded. “This of course means that things are very competitive. We need to build our market share and the SSP Pumps brand is an integral part of that strategy.” Increasing market share always represents a challenge and it will not be easy in the current climate. However, Alfa Laval Pumps is willing to call on every weapon in its arsenal and this will definitely assist its current business thrust.

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