The demand on valves, particularly in tyre production plants, is extreme with tyre curing presses working constantly at high temperatures and pressures of steam, water, and nitrogen. Additionally, the short processing cycles require extremely robust valves for highly demanding cycles, ensuring optimal operating efficiency and extending the service life for as long as possible. Product innovation is essential for success, but this means manufacturing equipment and processes must be flexible enough to support rapid changes. Tyre manufacturers, like many other businesses, are continually looking for ways to reduce costs through lower energy usage, minimising waste and improving automation.
Consolidation at Continental
Continental, a leading tyre manufacturer with global production facilities, applied angle seat and sliding gate valves from Schubert & Salzer Control Systems to optimise operating conditions at its plant located in Slovakia, and has continued to do so for many years.
Previously, several diverse valves from various manufacturers were used in the curing installations at the production facility. This gradually led to greater challenges concerning maintenance and spare parts procurement. However, all these challenges were addressed through the consistent retrofitting of systems to Schubert & Salzer technology, optimising the control accuracy, extending the service life under harsh operating conditions, simplifying the maintenance, reducing the range of models, and minimising the processing heat waste.
Complete solutions
Kamil Maharaj, Schubert & Salzer product specialist at Macsteel Fluid Control says: “We understand that equipment reliability and operational efficiency are essential in ensuring long-term success and sustainability in business. In keeping with Schubert & Salzer’s product quality, our business approach at Macsteel Fluid Control is to focus on providing complete solutions, not just selling valves, to customers. We adopt this approach with all customers to ensure optimal efficacy for their businesses.”
Macsteel Fluid Control has held the sub-Saharan licensing agreement for all Schubert & Salzer product for many years. Macsteel’s consistent performance to date has cemented this relationship and allowed a strong partnership to form, ensuring ultimate benefit to customers.
“We are able to provide service, back-up and the technical support on a range of Schubert & Salzer valves,” explains Maharaj. “We don’t just adopt the position of representing the agency in the country, we carry the stock and employ the right people to represent the products and understand their technical attributes. Additionally, we provide backup service and spares, if there is a valve or product that has been supplied and it fails, we commit that we will have spares available, and our customers won’t have to wait six to eight weeks to get them.”
Macsteel Fluid Control believes that providing innovative, appropriate solutions is crucial to ensuring the continuity and durability of any business, especially in changing, high-demand environments. The company has implemented the same solutions for customers in South Africa as those applied by Continental at its Slovakian production facility, contributing to the significant reduction of operational and manufacturing expenditure through energy saving. The recommended solutions are focused on better equipping customers to face the challenges that emerge as markets adapt to changing conditions.
“Macsteel is constantly pursuing reinvention and it is with this ethos in mind that we develop innovative fit-for-purpose solutions by virtue of our approach of looking beyond what the customer thinks they need, to understanding what they actually need, and addressing that challenge,” concludes Maharaj. “It’s an approach that continues to impress in the market.”
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