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Hattersley Newman Hender, Open and shut case

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Manufacturing in Action, Source : The Manufacturer
Published : August 2002

WH Parson goes with the flow at leading valve manufacturer Hattersley Newman Hender

Valves play a critical part of most industrial processes, and Hattersley Newman Hender has been making them for over 100 years. The company now has 9500 item lines; it sells two million valves every year. It is a world leader in what you might call the ‘flow business’, with a 60 per cent share of the market. The company has 300 employees; annual revenue is £30 million. Hattersley valves are used in the heating and ventilation industries, in office blocks, schools, hospitals, petrochemical plants and water works. One in four Hattersley valves is exported, with many ending up operating in some of the world’s most hostile environments.

The origins of Hattersley Newman Hender go back to 1897, when 20-year-old Richard Hattersley owned a small tool-making business in Halifax. In the early 1900s he relocated to Ormskirk, and in 1910 he joined with three other engineering companies, including Newman Hender & Co. of Woodchester, to form United Brassfounders & Engineers. The company was probably the most comprehensive group of its kind. By 1937 Hattersley and Newman Hender both enjoyed worldwide sales, with Hattersley exporting to some 73 countries. During the second world war, both companies entered war production, making fuses for armaments, brass rods for munitions factories and, of course, special valves for military purposes. After the war, the two companies diversified, and Hattersley expanded its overseas interests by buying a substantial stake in the large Australian valve company M B John, and establishing Hattersley (Canada) to develop business in North America.

Considerable investment was made in an advanced manufacturing plant at Ormskirk, and in 1981 a sophisticated new cast iron foundry came into operation. Built at a cost of £4 million, the fully automated foundry had the capacity to increase the output of castings by up to 40 per cent, producing 192 tons of castings per week. In 1984, the company was one of the first to receive BS 5750. This was followed by BSI Kitemark quality awards for its range of copper alloy gate, globe and check valves, draining cocks, and metric cast iron gate, globe, check and waterworks valves. Quality awards came from abroad too, when the Milliken lubricated parallel plug valve was approved by the Under-writers Laboratory in the US and the Canadian Gas Association, as the fruits of the continuing investment in production plant began to appear during 1985 and 1986. In a move to boost its on-going quality control programme, Hattersley installed a new computer assisted tri-axial inspection centre, which gives rapid highly accurate measurements over a wide variety of castings.

During this period the company introduced what is probably the most sophisticated valve production system in the world, a £5.5 million flexible manufacturing system. It followed a three-year evaluation involving companies throughout Europe. The British-built, computer-controlled system can manufacture over 2500 component variations, and in buoyant market conditions operates 24 hours a day, machining over 100 tonnes of castings per week. At its heart is a group of sophisticated FM 100 machining centres, with special-purpose out-facing machines, fed by automatically guided vehicles that move components and fixtures around the system.

In 1992 the foundry under went a major redevelopment at a cost of £1.6 million to install two six tonne electric induction furnaces to replace the coke fired cupolas. Hattersley continued to develop new products for heating and ventilating with the introduction of cast iron products for grooved piping systems in 1995. That year also saw the introduction of the next generation of balancing valves when the Autoflow range of automatic balancing valves was launched. Designed for use on both constant and variable volume systems, Autoflow significantly reduces the amount of commissioning time required to balance large systems. In 1990 Hattersley entered the industrial valve market when the Millcentric eccentric plug valve was developed for the waste water industry, and the Milliken Valve Co. was formed in Bethlehem USA to develop sales of the valve in North America. In 1996 the range of industrial valves increased, with a range of ductile iron knife gate valves for the pulp and paper industry. In 1998 a stainless steel range was added. Stainless steel ball valves were also added to the range that year, to cover the requirement for smaller sizes.

Throughout its long history, Hattersley Newman Hender has enjoyed a growing reputation for quality and reliability. The company has more kitemarked products than any other, and a recent survey showed that most of its customers prefer to stick with Hattersley rather than be tempted by less reputable rival products, even if they sometimes seem to be cheaper. Hattersley’s reputation continues to win it big contracts both at home and overseas, in both public and private markets - and most recently, in a big PFI project. Hattersley is supplying valves for the £45 million refurbishment of 20 schools in the Kirklees area of West Yorkshire. The two-and-a-half-year project is the biggest improvement programme undertaken by the council since the school building boom of the early 1960s. Temporary classrooms are being replaced, heating systems improved and new science and technology facilities installed and built. The average school contract for Hattersley is worth between £5000 and £15,000. The bulk of the valves being supplied by Hattersley are bronze isolating and commissioning valves used in low temperature heating systems.

Contractor EMCOR Drake & Scull have an 18-month nationwide agreement with Hattersley who provide them with a tailor-made range of valves to meet its needs at a specially negotiated rate. The project is the biggest Hattersley has been awarded involving a local authority private finance initiative. Over the next five years, the company plans to ex-pand into other lucrative new markets both at home and abroad.