Grundfos A/S

Success with processing of pumps for Grundfos

More and more industrial enterprises are bringing elements of their mass production back to Denmark after years of having parts manufactured in the Far East. At the same time, many others are choosing to keep production in Denmark for reasons of service and flexibility. The effects are being felt at RIVAL, which has enjoyed growing demand from customers who have had a negative experience of moving production abroad.

Henrik Holvad, RIVAL, and Peter Frost Jepsen, Grundfos, have worked together since 2006

Grundfos

Some years ago, Grundfos acquired a patent for a giant water and wastewater pump. The company had no experience of processing such large parts, so Grundfos’ Technology Centre allied itself with RIVAL and began testing the possibilities of processing the huge cast iron pumps.

Knowledge of manufacturing procedures

“The challenge lay in the staggering quality demands imposed by Grundfos: we’re talking a tolerance of 2/100 mm on a final dimension of up to one metre! It was tough, but we managed. We acquired the same manufacturing machines that Grundfos intended to use, for instance, so that we could standardise and share our knowledge. Our brief, in the first instance, was to process pumps for Grundfos’ clients and then to collect and pass on knowledge of manufacturing procedures to be implemented at Grundfos’ plant in Hungary,” explains Henrik Holvad, Managing Director of RIVAL. The Hungarians, however, found it very difficult to meet the manufacturing challenge and RIVAL was eventually asked to take over the processing of the pumps.

Carsten Oestergaard, RIVAL and Peter Frost Jeppesen, Grundfos

Pays off despite transport costs

Up until last year, the pump housings were also cast in Denmark for Grundfos. A lack of capacity at Danish foundries, however, meant that parts of the production process were moved abroad. “Although the logistics of transporting parts from the south of Europe to Denmark and back to Hungary after processing at RIVAL are less than ideal and far from cost effective, the flexibility and know-how offered by RIVAL mean that we deem it worthwhile in overall terms to keep production at RIVAL,” says Peter Frost Jepsen, Category Manager at Grundfos.

Rapid readjustment
RIVAL began working with the pumps in 2006, and since then all parts have been delivered on time and without errors. “If Grundfos wants to move the delivery of a particular item forward,
we simply reorder our priorities, so Grundfos’ clients benefit from our collaboration through better service. This is often impossible in Eastern Europe, where flexibility is seldom part of the arrangement,” says Henrik Holvad. Peter Frost Jepsen from Grundfos adds: “The market for these pumps is largely characterised by the need for safe and rapid deliveries since we’re dealing with
project sales – often for large public projects. Generally speaking, we have very little time between the moment we receive an order for a project to the date on which we need to deliver the first pumps, so it is very important that we can call the supplier and ask him to reprioritise orders. If we don’t deliver on time, we simply lose the order. And that’s the kind of flexibility we get from RIVAL.”

“All communication takes place between our Hungarian colleagues and RIVAL, and it functions perfectly. They can change plans with a single fax or a phone call, which means they don’t lose vital days on administrative work before processing can begin,” explains Peter Frost Jepsen.

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